


Lockjaw

by bitterbones



Series: Lockjaw Universe [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Eventual Smut, F/M, Now complete, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Warnings listed at the top of each chapter as necessary, Zombies, smut has arrived
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2018-10-11 16:51:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 106,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10469694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitterbones/pseuds/bitterbones
Summary: "And here Rey stands at a fork in the road. One path leads to certain death, either the infection or the hordes take her. The other is less concrete, blurred and unclear. It could also be a path of imminent demise, this time at the hands of a madman; or it could lead somewhere safe and clean, with clear water and green grass. A place where lockjaw isn’t a legitimate fear anymore and the hordes are a distant memory. He has given her an ultimatum."Kylo finds Rey unconscious and near death on the side of a road, surrounded by twitching, wretched things looking to her for their next meal. Ever the altruist, he picks them off and takes her with him, saving her life in the process. It's no wonder that when she wakes she feels she owes him, and agrees to become his travel companion as he crosses the United States in search of safety and a new home.Zombie Apocalypse AU, mind the tags/warnings.





	1. Roadrash

The ground is cold and hard under Rey’s injured foot. Clay, damp, forms to the shapes of her toes as she presses her weight onto the ailing appendage; it throbs at the pressure and she hisses, pressing the heel of her hand to her mouth. She can still hear the hordes behind her, shambling and growling as they pick through the thick mud and cattails of the marsh. She’s safe from the immediate danger for now; she’d had to swim across a river to get to the tree she currently leans against, and she knows for a fact that they can’t swim. Even if one did manage to bob its way across the current the rest of the horde is unlikely to follow, and taking out a straggler is easy.

 

But she has more immediate concerns now; she lost a boot to the swamp while she was running and then her left foot had caught on some sort of rusted industrial equipment on her way across the river. The skin on the top looks road rashed, scraped to hell and bleeding. It’s covered in mud, an infection risk for sure, and she doesn’t even want to think about the possibility of tetanus. Her ankle is already starting to swell, she can see the blue black bruises of a sprain beginning to paint their way across the surface of her dirty skin. She bites down hard on her lip to keep from crying out in frustration; this is probably the thing that will kill her--if the infection doesn’t do her in then the lockjaw will--but she isn’t going to give in so easily. If she’s going to die it’s going to be with more dignity than this; soaked to the bone and shivering like a wet cat, pupils still blown wide with adrenaline from a near miss with the horde. No, she’ll die in relative comfort if she has any say in the matter. Preferably tucked safely away in the CDC, in Atlanta. _She’s so close_.

 

She manages to finagle her bag from over her shoulders and it lands on the ground beside her with a heavy thump. She picks through it, tossing away the items that have taken on water damage; including a half eaten sleeve of saltine crackers. If she were of weaker constitution she might cry over that, the loss of her best food. But she lets them go gracefully and continues to dig around until she finds her ziplock bag of medical supplies. She sighs with relief to find that the seal is still in tact and the items inside are mercifully dry. Most of her elements are crude, basic things scavenged from cob webbed toiletry cabinets in long abandoned and picked over homes; no neosporin or peroxide, just iodine, no antibacterial dressings, just a basic gauze and a small roll of electrical tape. She reaches for her canteen, unclipping it from her belt and reluctantly unscrewing the lid. She hates wasting fresh water, but she doesn’t have much of a choice. She is about to tip the container over her wound when she thinks to press the collar of her jacket into her mouth. She can’t afford for any undesirables to hear her crying out in agony and hunting her down; and the hordes follow sound. 

 

Once the river drenched rag is pressed firmly into her gullet she tips the canister ever so slightly over her foot and bites back a sob at the sensation. It’s cold against her ragged, hot skin but it still burns like hell. After she’s cleared away most of the dirt she pats it dry with a bit of gauze and then moves on to what she knows will be the most unbearable part, the iodine. 

 

Heaviest of the stable halogens, symbol ‘I’, atomic number 53, atomic weight 126.904. Basic things she learned in her intro to chemistry class, all she knows about the staining liquid besides it’s tendency to kill the fuck out of pathogens. Should she pour it directly over the wound? Spread it onto the gauze? She doesn’t know, so she takes her best guess and grabs the bottle. She repeats the mantra to herself over and over again as she pops the cap. _Heaviest of the stable halogens, symbol ‘I’, atomic number 53, atomic weight 126.904._ Tips the bottle over her foot. _Heaviest of the stable halogens, symbol ‘I’, atomic number 53, atomic weight 126.904._ And squeezes. _Heaviest of the stable halogens, symbol ‘I’, atomic number 53, atomic weight 126.904!_

 

This time she doesn’t just cry out against the rough dirty fabric of her coat, she shrieks. She drops the bottle and gropes at the hard clay of the earth around her as her foot burns. She squeezes her eyes shut and writhes, tears roll down her face and she wonders briefly if she should have just let the damned thing fester. 

 

Once the white hot pain has begun to fade she manages to tighten the cap back onto the iodine and find her gauze and electrical tape. She wraps it tightly, grimacing as the fabric presses on her wound; but it's nowhere near the level of pain disinfecting had caused, so she grinds her teeth and bears it. Once it’s tightly wrapped in several layers of clean white cotton, she takes the black electrical tape and wraps it around her foot haphazardly several times, following no distinguishable pattern. Rey observes her handy work and scowls, it’s certainly no medic’s job; but it’ll do until she can find shelter and better supplies. She supposes the loss of the left boot isn’t so terrible, she wouldn’t be able to wear it anyway with the way her ankle is swelling, and it would’ve been one more thing she had to carry on a bum leg. 

 

She sits for a few peaceful moments, watching the way the sunset has begun to paint the sky in dusky pinks and oranges, catching on clouds and casting their white slopes with splashes of color. Even after the world has ended the sunset is still beautiful, she decides. She hasn’t had the time to stop and appreciate it since before the hordes came. 

 

Eventually Rey finds the strength within herself to rise, grasping at the rough bark of the tree trunk for support. Her ankle throbs in protest, and the gauze is awkward in the arch of her foot, but she doesn’t have much choice. She’s alone in the forest, the sun is setting, and she can no longer climb a tree to shelter in for the night. She needs to keep moving, put as much distance between her and the last horde she encountered as is humanly possible. She looks around her for a solid branch to use as a walking stick, and spots one almost immediately. Propped up against the base of a large pine tree is a tall stick, several inches thick and about a foot shorter than she is. She limps over to it and takes it into her hands, putting all of the weight from the left side of her body onto it. She grins when it holds without complaint. 

 

She’s just fished her compass from her pocket and she’s about to walk away, when she notices the suspicious lightness at her side. Her bat is missing. She panics and nearly trips over her lame foot and walking stick as she scrambles back towards the tree she had rested at. 

 

_Please let it be there. Please let it be there._

 

She needs that bat, it’s her only weapon. It has been her constant companion on this hell journey to nowhere in particular. And it’s there, thank God, half buried under dead leaves and pine needles, her Louisville slugger; a rusted nail hammered through the fat end of it. She leans over, groaning as her foot shifts uncomfortably in her bandages, and picks it up by the handle. She pushes it back into its place on her belt and sighs at the feel of the familiar weight on her hip. 

 

Then she goes, moving one limb at a time. Right, branch, left. Right, branch, left. It’s painful and arduous but she manages to keep a steady pace; slow and even as the sunset casts her in its eerie light and she is left with no company but the sounds of her heavy feet on dead leaves, the agony coursing up her left leg, and her own paranoia. Every bird chirp is a bandit aiming a bead on her, every twig snap is a zombie approaching with uncharacteristic silence from behind. The evening light casts eerie shadows across the forest floor, even the smallest of trees is made a beast in its shadow, towering over her and looming like a great pillars of death, watching, waiting for her to make one more mistake. The leaves seem to whisper her name, rustling gently against one another in the most menacing way. She’s truly paranoid, she knows she is. She’s been alone for too long. Days? Weeks? Too long. But her understanding of her condition doesn’t stop her from clutching her bat in her free hand and jumping at every shifting shadow.

 

Once the sun has set completely and she is beset by total darkness--moonlight only breaking the dense canopy in rare spatterings of silver across the forest floor--she walks more slowly, with more caution. She can’t see much, even once her eyes have adjusted the world around her is black as pitch and she can’t afford to slip and fall; if she twists her other ankle she’s done for. 

 

She carries on until sunrise, and then goes further. She can’t stop now, not when she’s so sure that she’s nearly there. In all the chaos of the previous day she had prioritized her destination to the back of her mind, tucked it away while she struggled against the horde and then against her own body. Now her resolve has been strengthened; she will get to Atlanta, to the Centers for Disease Control. It’s the only option she has left. It’s a far fetched idea that she has, she knows it, but she still prays that she’s right. That the hordes have thinned and the virus burned out at the epicenter of the epidemic and that she’ll find other survivors there, scientists maybe. People who understand the infection and how to combat it. But as she draws closer and closer the road has grown no less volatile, the hordes still come at regular intervals, and she is entirely alone. 

 

She doesn’t know how long she carries on. Another day at least, she breaks the treeline halfway through the first day, and comes out on a road. She stops for brief naps during the day, snacking on some of the dried fruit that survived her impromptu swim, and then she leaves whatever burnt out car or bungalow she has taken shelter in and begins the trek anew. She does this for yet another day, but then time begins to blur. Night and day feed endlessly into one another. When exactly her foot becomes hot and the exposed skin around the bandage inflamed, she isn’t quite sure; but it happens. Infection. Despite the agony she went through to prevent it. But she’s too far gone, her brain fried in the Georgia heat, her mind muddled with fever and pain; she presses onward thoughtlessly, somewhere along the way she drops her walking stick and doesn’t bother to pick it back up, or maybe she doesn’t notice that it even fell. And then it’s raining, hard beads of water pelting her hot skin. She thinks she can hear a horde somewhere in the distance. She can’t get up to run.

 

Gunshots, three of them. Maybe they were aimed at her. Maybe she’s been infected, and this strange ethereal blackness that has passed over her vision is what it’s like to be one of the walking dead. Maybe she’s been dead for a long time, dead since she fled the apartment. Dead on her feet, running away from the inevitable. She decides that it’s time to sleep. The darkness overtakes her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Kylo shows up next chapter.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments/kudos really do inspire me :3


	2. Rations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't help but update this again today. I'm having so much fun writing it. :D

Rey wakes some time later, she isn’t entirely sure when, but she thinks the sun had been up when she passed out, and now it’s dark. There’s something hard pressing into her belly, and it feels like all the blood in her body has pooled in her head. Her face is hot, her hair is hanging around her like a tangled, matted veil. When did it come out of the bun? There’s a steady rocking motion that almost lulls her back into unconsciousness, but she fights through it long enough to feel around. Her hand is met with the rough fabric of a jacket, and then the silky texture of hair. 

 

_She’s being carried_. 

 

She tries to struggle, wiggling against the man; but she is weak, very weak. And he hardly seems to notice, he just tightens the one arm he has wrapped around her waist and keeps walking.

 

She barely finds the strength within herself to speak, but she manages to choke out a few words, “...put...me d-down.” Her throat is raw and parched, her lips cracked and she thinks that she can taste the coppery tang of blood on her tongue. 

 

He doesn’t stop walking to address her, as far as she can tell he doesn’t even look back at her. “I can’t, you’re wounded kid, and badly dehydrated no doubt. If I put you down you wouldn’t even be able to stand.”

 

She’s too weak to respond, she just bumps her fist lightly into his back as a final form of protest before she slips under the dark waves of unconsciousness again. 

 

The next time she wakes it’s in a dimly lit room, laid out across a worn sleeping bag. There’s a pathetic bare light bulb hanging on a string from the wooden ceiling, it flickers several times before maintaining a constant weak glow, it has just come on. Someone has just entered the room. It’s a man.

 

She manages to sit up, groping at her side for her Louisville slugger but coming up empty. In fact, most of her belongings are gone from her person. Her pack, her bat, her compass and canteen, even her jacket. She’s been stripped to her t-shirt and changed into a pair of loose mens shorts. She grips the material of the sleeping bag tightly and stares daggers at the man’s back. She has no weapon, no idea where she is, and no plan of escape; and there's no telling what this fucker did to her while she was out. He clearly had no problem fucking with her stuff. Her head throbs and she whimpers, it feels like someone’s beating on her temples with a hammer.

 

He glances over his shoulder at her. He’s wearing a dirty white shirt--tight fitting--and a pair of camouflage pants along with some heavy combat boots. His hair is tied back into a tail, exposing his large ears. 

 

“Good,” he says, nonchalant, as though this isn’t strange in the slightest, “You’re up.”

 

“Wh--”she cuts herself off, shocked by the rough sound of her own voice, it’s like someone has gone over her vocal chords with sand paper.

 

The corner of his mouth quirks downwards and he reaches behind him. He pulls out a stainless steel water bottle, beat to hell, and tosses it at her. 

 

“Here,” he says, “Drink.”

 

It lands with a thud in front of her. She glances at it and then goes back to glaring at him. Like hell she’s going to drink anything he gives her. 

 

He rolls his eyes and turns away again, fiddling with something on the high set work table across the room. “Fine, think what you want. It’s your hide.” 

 

She stares at the bottle for another long moment, taking note of the faded blue color and the wear along the bottom, tiny tallies worn into it by time. 

 

She inhales through her nose, keeping her eyes trained on the floor and bottle in front of her. She has to be sure that it's safe. “...you...first.” She manages to croak.

 

He freezes at the sound of her, like he had expected her to sit there and die from dehydration. She grinds her teeth. He slowly walks over to kneel in front of her, and he looks her dead in the eye as he lifts the bottle from the ground, unscrews the lid with a distinct ‘squeak’ sound and presses it to his full lips; drinking deeply of the contents with several exaggerated gulps. His adam’s apple bobs distinctly against the pale skin of his throat as he finishes, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

 

He grabs her hand, dwarfing it in his own, and presses the bottle into her palm. 

 

“See,” he says. His voice is gruff, his dark eyes remain locked onto her face, “Not spiked. Drink.” He pulls away and returns to his work bench. 

 

She obeys and presses the still open bottle to her lips, sipping at first and then, realizing the depth of her own thirst, she tilts it back and chugs the cool contents. It soothes her throat and washes a foul taste from her mouth that she hadn’t even realized was there. She empties the canister and lets it drop to the floor. She presses her hands onto the sleeping bag and rises slowly and shakily to her feet, then rests her palms on her knees and breaths deeply for a moment as her whole body protests the action, her knees quake and her head throbs more insistently. Her gaze catches on her injured foot, wrapped in clean bandages and no longer an angry red color.

 

“How long was I out?” Her voice is mostly in tact, a bit airy but otherwise returned to normal by the water.

 

“Four days.” He says, monotone and disinterested, “You were semi-lucid sometimes. That’s when I would make you drink. You’re lucky you’re not dead.” He glances over his shoulder at her like he expects gratitude. 

 

She puffs out her chest indignantly, and frowns at him. “Where’s my stuff?”

 

He sniffs and turns to lean his back against the table, like he’s anticipating a fight. “I hid it.”

 

What? Rey’s fists clench at her sides and rage bubbles low in her belly, “Why the fuck would you do that?”

 

His face, which before had been cautious and guarded, sours as soon as the words have left her mouth. “Because I didn’t want you to wake up confused and try to bludgeon me to death with that bat! Clearly I made the right decision.” He crosses his arms over his chest and stands up straight, looking down on her. 

 

She hardly has time to take in the sheer massiveness of his body before she’s standing toe to toe with him, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She can feel her nails biting into the palms of her hands.

 

He visibly snarls at her, shuffling back into the metal work bench, “It means that you’re irrational and erratic, even when you’re lucid, apparently!” He throws his hands up, and she flinches away reflexively.

 

“Just tell me where they are so I can go.” She demands, low and sullen. She needs to get to Atlanta, to the CDC so she can understand this whole mess. So she doesn’t have to live on the edge anymore. She’s _so close_ , or she had been. There's no telling where this maniac has taken her.

 

“So you can nail me in the head with your bat and take my supplies? Not likely.” He snaps, “And you’re hardly in shape to be leaving. You just woke up from a fucking four day fever dream, and you’re still severely dehydrated. You’d die out there on your own.”

 

“You’re such a fucking asshole!” She jumps at him, intending to swing, but is instead overcome by a wave of nauseating vertigo. She hits the floor on her knees and wretches, her entire body screaming at her to rest. “Fuck.” She hisses as she stares at the water she had just downed, all brought back up in a single act of rash stupidity. 

 

The man chuckles above her, “I told you.”

 

“...fuck you.” She pants and backs up a bit, remaining on her knees. She presses her forehead to the cold hardwood floor and grunts. It feels good against her burning skin. 

 

“I’m being altruistic, really.” He says, and she wants to clock him in the jaw for how condescending he sounds, “Taking in a street rat I find on the side of the highway. I stopped traveling so I could take care of you. Clearly a waste of my time if this is all the thanks I get.”

 

She rises onto her forearms, then puts her palms on her knees, sitting upright. She fights back another wave of nausea then snarls at him, “What do you want me to do, suck your dick?”

 

He rolls his eyes and starts to walk away, towards a closed wooden door. “Whatever, kid. I don’t know why I bothered saving you.”

 

“Maybe I wanted to die you fucking prick!” She spits at him, “You don’t know me! You don’t know why I was out there.”

 

He leans in the door frame and faces her again. She can see a short flight of stairs behind his hulking form, “I doubt it. You were crying when I found you. Quite the feat for someone who was as dehydrated as you were.” 

 

Her jaw drops a bit, she’s at a loss for words. He descends the stairs without further comment and leaves her to wonder if it’s true. Had she actually been crying? Why would he lie about something so petty? 

 

She manages to push herself back onto her feet and wobble over to her sleeping bag. She collapses on it and presses her face into the worn nylon. It’s just minutes before sleep takes her again.

 

She is awoken sometime later, by a hand on her shoulder. “Wake up, kid.”

 

_It’s him._

 

She had dreamt that she was back at U Florida, with all of her friends. That the world was normal and not crawling with herds of living nightmares. That she hadn’t nearly died and been saved by some military wannabe asshole. 

 

“What?” She whimpers and rolls over to look at him. He’s holding a silvery bag, and there’s a pleasant smell coming from it. She sits up slowly and shakes her head to eliminate any remaining drowsiness. “What’s that?”

 

She reaches for it but he stops her by gently grabbing her wrist with his massive hand. She seems so fragile next to him and it lights a fire inside her, she can take care of herself. She’ll prove it. She pushes back, trying harder to get to what is clearly some kind of food. 

 

“Stop.” He snaps, “I’m trying to help you here.” 

 

She snatches her wrist away and rubs where his calloused palm had touched her, “I don’t need your help. I need to get the hell out of here, I’m--”

 

“Going to Atlanta?” He cuts her off, looking at her knowingly. Like she’s an open book and he can see every thought written across her pages.

 

“How do you know that?” She's more shocked than angry and it must show because he takes the opportunity to produce a canteen from behind himself.

 

“Here,” he says, uncapping it and handing it to her. “Drink, more slowly this time, then you can eat.”

 

“Tell me--”

 

“I’ll tell you when you start drinking.” He deadpans.

 

She cautiously raises the canteen to her lips and takes several small sips. It’s fresh and cool, just like the last bottle. She wonders where his supply is. How he has access to such high quality things as field rations and clean drinking water. 

 

“I figured you were going to Atlanta from the direction you were moving in. Northwest.” He tells her.

 

She lowers the canteen a bit, still keeping it near her face. She isn’t done yet. “Have you been there?”

 

“Yes I have.” He says and she sips again while he speaks. This seems to please him so he continues unprompted, “I’ve met people like you before. Heading up that same road. There’s nothing left in Atlanta, kid. It’s just as bad as everywhere else.”

 

“You’ve been hanging out around here?” Sip.

 

“Yes.” Another sip, “I stuck around after everything went to shit here to warn people off. I bet you had the same thing planned as a lot of them did. Except most of them went into the city anyways. I saved you.”

 

She sips again, “What is it that you think I had planned?”

 

He chuckles and she sips, “You thought that somehow the Centers for Disease Control survived the initial outbreak. That the virus had burned itself out in the city and the hordes weren’t so...aggressive around here, considering the time that’s passed.”

 

She lowers the canteen into her lap, staring at him wide eyed. How could he know in such detail? 

 

He shakes his head and looks away from her, towards a boarded up window. Slats of light shine through the cracks between the boards, catching dancing dust motes in their glow. “Like I said, I’ve been around here for a while, I met a lot of people. I haven’t convinced one to turn back yet though. None of them have come back out. Not that I’ve seen.”

 

She takes another sip, “How can you be sure it’s so bad? Have you been to the CDC? There could still be scientists there. There have to be! They started this whole fucking mess in the first place.” She is tensed and about to spring to her feet in her outrage.

 

He places a hand on her shoulder and says softly, “Calm down, kid. You’ll make yourself sick again.”

 

“But I--”

 

“No.” He says, and pushes the canteen back at her, “Here, keep drinking while you eat.” He hands her the ration bag. “And don’t eat too much, you’ll make yourself sick.” 

 

She nods and reaches eagerly for the silvery pouch. It’s filled with some non descript pasta meal, she doesn’t really care. It has semi real meat and actual taste and that’s enough for her. She goes at it with her fingers, knowing he probably doesn’t have any silverware, and it’s the apocalypse, she doubts manners matter much anymore. He watches her while she eats, reminding her occasionally to take a drink of water. And it’s only once she’s a third of the way through the bag that Rey realizes her stomach has probably shrunken down to the size of a walnut over the past few days of starvation, or even weeks of endless travel. She’s full. 

 

He smirks as she pushes the bag back towards him, feeling a bit nauseous again.

 

“I figured.” He says, and he starts to eat it, reaching in and pulling out a few noodles and a piece of what Rey thinks is chicken. “Anyways, let’s talk.”

 

“Yea, so how do you know that the CDC is a bust?” She pries.

 

“Not what I meant,” he says around a mouthful of food, “We need to establish a plan, a way to get out of the Atlanta area. This place is crawling, and I know most of the safe routes up until about a half mile out of the city, after that I’m blind.”

 

Rey reels a bit, thrown off by his sudden enthusiasm for traveling with her, “Hold on a second,” She caps the canteen and sets it down beside her, half empty, “What makes you think I’m going to go anywhere with you?”

 

He polishes off the bag and tosses it away, forgotten under the work table. “Because I saved you, you’re injured and you owe me.”

 

“Not very convincing.” She snaps.

 

“Fine.” He stands up so that he towers over her, a beast of a man, “How about this? You’re wounded still. You have minimal medical supplies, you can’t move very far or very fast on a foot like that. I have a vehicle and enough fuel to last us four hundred miles, not to mention field rations and a half dozen milk jugs filled with clean drinking water. I could pack up my stuff--including that sleeping bag--and head out on my own. Leave you here with a bum leg and half beaten infection to be eaten alive by the hordes. Or I could take you with me, another mouth to feed, someone I have to waste my precious antibiotics on; but someone to watch my six, help keep me alive and I do the same in turn.”

 

She gulps and unscrews the canteen again, sipping at the contents nervously in the moment of awkward silence that follows.

 

He laughs, “Don’t you see kid? The amazing deal I’m offering you? Why are you so stubborn?”

 

“I--I don’t even know what your name is, you could be a murderer, you could be crazy for all I know.” She won’t look back up at him, she’s afraid of him in this moment. She doesn’t know how to handle his eccentricness. Why is he suddenly so eager to be around her, to drag her out of here kicking and screaming? He must be insane, or at least have some unspoken ulterior motive. He had changed the subject abruptly and obviously when she asked for more details about the CDC. She decides that she’ll broach the subject later, once she’s certain that he won’t try to kill her. 

 

“My name is Kylo. I don’t know how to prove that I’m not crazy other than to tell you I’m not.” He sounds exasperated, lost even. 

 

She rises slowly to her feet, taking notice that some of her aches and pains have begun to fade. “That’s exactly what a crazy person would say.” She half jokes and looks at him again, managing a half smile, not genuine. “I’m Rey.” 

 

And here Rey stands at a fork in the road, one path leads to certain death. Either the infection or the hordes take her. The other is less concrete, blurred and unclear. It could also be a path of imminent demise, this time at the hands of a mad man; or it could lead somewhere safe and clean, with clear water and green grass. A place where lockjaw isn’t a legitimate fear anymore and the hordes are a distant memory. He has given her an ultimatum.

 

But before she inevitably says yes, she has one more question for him. “What’s four hundred miles from here?”

 

“A little less than a quarter of the way to California,” he says, “And hopefully more gas.”

 

She nods her head and purses her lips, giving in to his demands, “Alright, I’ll come. But I need to know more. Why California? What’s out there that isn’t here?”

 

“All in good time, Rey.” He says, becoming cold again, just like he had been when she first woke up. He only opened up to get what he wanted from her. Of course. She should’ve expected as much from a total stranger. 

 

“When do we leave?” She asks, quietly. She lays back on the sleeping bag. While they were talking the light shafting through the slats in the boarded up window had begun to fade. Dusk is on them and she’s still weak and exhausted. 

 

“Two days.” He says. “I need to pack up, and you need more time to heal.”

 

There is a noise from outside, an unmistakable grunt followed by a low moan. Kylo’s head shoots up, and he’s gone in a flash of white and camo. Again Rey is left alone with her thoughts, though he wasn’t much in the way of company to begin with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly think this is the most fun I've ever had writing a fic. Like I'm already up to chapter five and about 10,000 words. This is great :)
> 
> Please leave kudos/comments, I reply to all comments :D


	3. Frequency

Two days later and they’ve barely spoken since the conversation over their shared field rations. But Rey’s been able to draw some conclusions from what he has stashed around the old car repair garage they’re camped out in. For one, he has a sniper rifle, it’s long and intimidating and it has a scope, but that’s the extent of her knowledge about the thing. She doesn’t know much about guns, but she figures that this isn’t typical for a civilian to have laying around. So Kylo either found the damned thing laying around somewhere, which seems unlikely, or it’s his and he’s more than just a military wannabe. That would also explain why he has, or had, access to such a wide variety of field rations and medical supplies. Kylo has given her clean clothes to wear, clean _women’s_ clothes; jeans, hiking boots, a shirt and a windbreaker. Where he got those she hasn’t the slightest clue, and she doesn’t really want to know. He also had redressed her foot the night before and the range of his medic’s arsenal is impressive, but of course when she had asked about it he pursed his lips and refused to speak anymore. It’s almost childish, this game they play.

 

And then there’s the journal. It has to be a journal, she doesn’t know what else he could possibly be scribbling so furiously in when he thinks she’s asleep. Both nights that she’s been here she has snuck down the stairs after dark, only to find him sitting at a dilapidated desk, facing away from her and bent over some sort of book, his right hand moving with near violence over the page. Rey knows that the answers to all of her questions are scrawled across the pages of that damned journal, but he keeps it close. It’s always tucked into his pack which is always in his line of sight. And she doesn’t dare try to steal it in the night, risk rousing him and him snapping. She thinks he’s unstable to say the least and she doesn’t want to poke the metaphorical bear. 

 

He’s packing up the last of the supplies now, into the back of his black Ford Ranger, a pickup truck. It’s small, but he seems to think it’s reliable enough. The sides and wheel wells are caked in mud; he’s been driving it frequently.

 

“Won’t driving attract bandits?” She asks, perched on top of a tire rack, twirling a piece of her hair between her fingers absentmindedly. He won’t let her help pack up, he says he doesn’t trust her yet, which doesn’t make much sense considering all of this is his idea, but she won’t complain. She supposes laying around and enjoying her last few minutes of relative safety is better than hauling gas canisters and water jugs.

 

“Not if we stick to the backstreets, even though it will double the drive time.” He says as he packs the last of the water into the bed of the truck, “And this area is pretty bandit free. The whole greater Atlanta area was massacred in the initial outbreak.”

 

“It’s not always going to be like that, though,” She had nearly walked straight into an encampment on her way north, luckily she had taken note of the watchtowers coming into view over the crest of a hill. It had been a prison, now taken over by its former occupants. A sobering experience, all-in-all, and one that pushed her further off of the beaten path. “I came up from Florida and the roads got pretty treacherous sometimes. I had to move through the woods and swamps.”

 

He chuckles at her mockingly, and slams the tailgate of the truck after the last of the gas canisters is in. He’s done packing. “Well I’m not you, sweetheart. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed,” he lifts his sniper rifle up from where is was resting against the side of the truck, “But I’m much better armed. I’m not afraid of a couple of common bandits.”

 

Rey sighs and drops down from the top of the rack and tugs a hair tie from her wrist. Escaped convicts turned wardens hardly count as common bandits in her mind, but that’s irrelevant now. He wouldn’t care. “Alright, whatever you say.” She pulls her hair back into a bun and glances around the garage. He still hasn’t given her stuff back yet. “So, my supplies, when can I have them back?”

 

“They’re packed up.” He says, like it's an actual answer and not another avoidance on his part. Rey has come to understand that this is how he functions; with half truths and secrecy. 

 

“What do you mean they’re packed up? I need those things, they’re _mine_.” She’s standing in front of him, her arms crossed over her chest defensively. She’s cautious with him, frightened by what he might be capable of, but she really wants her stuff back, and she’s always been one to push her luck. 

 

He scowls a bit and opens the driver's side door of the truck, “We’ve been over this,” he tucks his rifle behind the seat so that the barrel is pointed at the ceiling, “I don’t know if I can trust you yet.”

 

She rolls her eyes and throws her hands up in the air, frustrated. “I don’t understand why you don’t. You’re going to drag me across the fucking country with you, but you don’t trust me enough to let me have my baseball bat?”

 

“You might try to kill me.” He’s so nonchalant in the way he says it, like it’s a common occurrence that someone tries to murder him. “Plus, it’s not just a baseball bat, you put a six inch nail through the barrel of that thing. An antique too, a collectible, quite sad really.”

 

She pushes a few loose strands of hair out of her dirty face, and ignores his faux nostalgia, “Kylo, you had guns and knives and all kinds of crazy shit hidden around this garage the whole time I was here. I saw them, I knew where they were and I never tried to kill you.”

 

He looks pensive for a moment, confused by this revelation. “I...that was stupid of me, wasn’t it?”

 

“Not the point I’m trying to make.” She really just wants her stuff back; she isn’t even planning to run, Kylo’s right when he says he can keep her alive. She’ll stick with him until the water runs out, at least. 

 

“Just get in the truck, Rey.” He commands, ending the conversation effectively. 

 

She doesn’t argue, instead she slinks around to the passenger's side of the cab like a scolded animal and gets in. Rey knows better than to argue with him, to push the issue any further than she already has. Pushing her luck can only get her so far before it ends with her on the wrong end of his rifle.

 

He doesn’t join her immediately. Instead he walks around the the bed of the truck, and opens the tailgate. Rey watches him in the rearview mirror as he shifts through his tightly packed supplies. 

 

“What the hell is he doing now?” She asks herself aloud. In her weeks alone, wandering the swampy forests and fields of the American south, she had learned that speaking to herself helped to ward off the oppressive silence that loomed constantly over her. She continues the habit now, because she isn’t convinced that Kylo, or whatever his name really is, hasn’t lost his humanity in the chaos. Whenever they speak it's like trying to interact with a wild animal, she never knows what sort of reaction her words will earn. He’s unpredictable, and he’s definitely hiding something. She still feels just as alone as she did before he had found her.

 

He slams the tailgate and comes around to the drivers side, Louisville slugger in hand. “Here,” he hands it to her over the center console, “Take it.”

 

Her breath catches and she stares at the smooth wooden handle for a moment before she takes it from him, snatching it like he might steal it away from her again. She clutches it close for a moment and sighs a breath she has been holding for close to three days. 

 

“But,” his voice is low and threatening and ruins the moment entirely, “If you so much as think about hitting me with it, I’ll take it and I’ll break it in half.”

 

She looks at him testily, “How will you know what I’m thinking?” She knows it’s a childish response, but it was a patronizing threat and she’s decided to act in turn. 

 

He leans in, over his seat and over the console, until their foreheads are nearly touching. She presses back against the door but he follows her there too, easily bridging the distance. His dark eyes are made near black in the shadowed cab of the truck, and his face is emotionless. “I’ll know.” It’s low, almost animal. 

 

She shivers as he backs away. And there it was, the crazy she had suspected. She tucks the bat onto the floor by her right foot, barrel down so Kylo doesn’t suspect some nonexistent threat, and settles uneasily back into her seat. The look in his eyes had been inhuman. And a small foolish part of her fears that maybe he can really read her thoughts. 

 

In her fear she hadn’t noticed him pull another one of his guns from behind the seat, but now he has a double barrel shotgun in hand and he’s standing in front of the garage door, staring at it like he’s waiting for something. Then he reaches down for the handle--there’s no power so manual is the only option--and he lifts it hard and fast, letting the thing fly up and slam into the ceiling while he rushes back to the cab and jumps in, slamming the door behind himself. 

 

And there it is, standing in front of them, a group of zombies. Grey skinned and white eyed, purple veined and bloody. Not enough to account for an entire horde, but enough to be a threat. They’re doing the thing Rey knows they do after they hear a noise, twitching and hissing, heads moving and shifting in jerky rough motions. Then one of them, a female, shrieks and lunges into the garage with the others hot on her heels, omitting the same ungodly noise. But Kylo is ready and he floors the gas, slamming directly into them, sending them flying like bowling pins. One of them is forced up and onto the hood then over the top of the truck. It smears foul, black blood over the windshield and lands at the very edge of the covered bed of the truck before falling hard onto the asphalt as Kylo peels away. 

 

Rey is gripping the edge of the seat hard, white knuckled as they speed away from the garage. She twists to look out the back window and she can see in the distance that there are more of them, now just blots against horizon. They’ll never catch up, she tells herself, they may be fast but they’ll never catch up. 

 

Kylo relaxes back into his own seat and shoots her a sideways glance. “I’d kill all of them if I could.” 

 

She just gulps and gives a slight nod. _They were people once_.

 

“Turn on the radio and run through the stations, it’s worth looking for a frequency.” 

 

She does so without comment, pressing the round dial and finding he has it set to the FM frequency. She goes through all of the stations within their range twice, only to hear static. 

 

“Nothing.” She says, even though she knows he heard. 

 

“Try the AM’s.” 

 

She does, and the first one she turns to greets them the the familiar three shrill beeps followed by the high pitched tone of an emergency broadcast. She goes to change it but he stops her with his hand over the dial.

 

“I haven’t heard it yet.” He explains.

 

A mechanical male voice begins, “The following emergency broadcast has been issued at the request of the Centers for Disease Control, effective immediately for the entire United States. A highly contagious infection has been reported in cities across the country. We advise that you remain indoors if possible, and stay away from doors and windows,” Rey’s chest hurts as she thinks back to the first time she heard this broadcast, how she had wondered why the hell a virus warranted keeping away from windows, “Watch for the following symptoms of early infection: fever, twitching, fainting, foaming at the mouth, whitening of the eyes, pronounced and pulsing veins, seizure, and bleeding from the nose, eyes, or mouth. If you believe you are infected please admit yourself to the nearest CDC field hospital or facility for immediate treatment.” The entire messages repeats before it goes out with the same three shrill noises followed by the high pitched tone.

 

They sit in solemn silence for a moment before she asks, without looking at him, “How had you not heard that yet?”

 

He presses the dial to turn the radio off as the message begins to repeat for a second time, “I never listened to the radio much.”

 

“It was on TV.” She says. She can practically hear his discomfort as he shifts in his seat. She spares him a glance from the corner of her eye and can see that his knuckles are white on the steering wheel. 

 

“I didn’t watch much TV either,” he explains, he sounds like he’s struggling to find words, like he’s fabricating an explanation, “I figured it out when a fucking dead guy tried to bite me in the street.”

 

“Okay.” She doesn’t have much else to say to him. He doesn’t want to talk about it, clearly, and maybe she doesn’t even want to know. Whatever he was before the world ended is a mystery. That frightens her, but knowing the truth could make that fear a thousand times more real and a thousand times more warranted. And since he’s the one who has the clean water, she decides that ignorance really must be bliss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting again because why not. April fools is kind of a holiday, I guess.


	4. Clawed

They travel through the day in silence, but it’s a comfortable one. Neither of them have anything to say. And Rey is fine with that. It’s when the sun begins to set and the light begins to fade that the familiar disease starts to take hold of them. Kylo explains that they have to stop at night, they can’t use headlights to light their way; it’s too dangerous, a great way to attract bandits in the dark. _Now he's worried about bandits_. So they’ll stop for the night and sleep in the cab of the truck. Rey's stomach churns; she’s been sleeping in the vicinity of this man for a week--if unconsciousness counts as sleeping--but there had been space between the two of them before. He had slept downstairs in the garage while she slept upstairs in the workshop. Now she has to sleep with little more than a foot between them. 

 

He pulls into an abandoned gas station once they can’t read the road signs anymore. The lights are on outside but not in.

 

“They’re probably on a timer.” He says, and pulls his shotgun out from under his seat. “I’m going to have a look around, just to make sure we’re clear, and you’re going to help me.” Then he reaches into one of the deep pockets of his stupid camo cargo pants and produces a handgun.

 

He tosses it at her and she barely catches it before it connects with her face. “You’re like a walking arsenal, aren’t you?” She snaps, but manages to keep her voice low.

 

“You know how to shoot?” He asks, completely indifferent to her snideness.

 

She scowls at him, “Is that a joke? Why would I ever have needed to shoot a gun before?” 

 

That gets him, he shoots her a goading look and says mockingly, “Oh that’s right, you’re British aren’t you? It’s an American thing, I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” He cocks his shotgun to punctuate the statement and she nearly flies out of her seat. 

 

“What the fuck is your problem?!” She yells unthinkingly, her fists clenching at her sides. She unbuckles and leans over, grabbing the collar of his shirt threateningly even though she’s so much smaller than he is. But when she tries to tug him forward he’s stiff as a board, frozen. He’s gone pale and he’s staring out the window behind her. She stops too, dropping her hand and turning slowly to see exactly what has him petrified. But really, she already knows. 

 

There’s three of them on her side of the truck. Two of them are looking in the window, clicking in the back of their throats, like they’re apt to do, and jerking their heads from side to side, waiting for a confirming noise; birds of prey watching for the telltale sparkle of fish in the water, hungry for a meal. The third is scratching its broken, bloody fingernails against the hood of the truck and wheezing. It has obviously been shot before, there’s a massive chunk of flesh missing from its side. It's wearing an apron and a hat that says Gas’N Go on it. A former employee of the station, no doubt.

 

She looks to Kylo, and a cold bead of sweat rolls down her back as he holds his finger up to his lips and then motions for her to lean back against the seat.

 

“Kylo,” she hisses, realizing what he’s about to do, but it’s too late. He shoves her back against the upholstery with one hand and uses the other to press the shotgun directly to the glass of the closed window. And he fires.

 

All three of the fuckers scream at the sound, and one of them collapses immediately in a storm of buckshot and broken glass. The other shrieks even louder and reels backwards, clawing at its face as it howls. Kylo grabs Rey by the arm and tugs her out the driver’s side door with him. She’s still clutching the gun tight in her hand and he raises it to her face.

 

“If something comes at you point and pull the trigger!” He yells and then he’s shooting another zombie, this time an entirely new one. They’re surrounded now, on all sides but one there are snapping howling zombies, covered in blood and gore. Kylo is shooting them systematically as the two of them back towards the station, but whenever one falls, another is standing behind it, ready to take the previous' place. This is the bulk of a horde. 

 

“Quick, get inside!” Rey yells just as one of the beasts charges them, and the rest start to follow. 

 

She grabs his wrist and they make a break for the brick building, her lungs burn with the effort after so many days of malnutrition and weakness and he ends up leading her, one large hand wrapped around her wrist dragging her behind him. Just as the front door--glass goddamn it--comes into view, she feels a single stiff, dead finger poke hard into her back and _curl_ ; the nail tearing through her clothes and cutting into her skin. She manages to turn just enough to level her handgun and shoot the damned thing in the face. It squeals as it goes down. At that same moment Kylo and she slam hard through the door.

 

“It’s fucking glass!” She says, as she tugs her wrist away and begins running through the isles, desperately searching for a supply closet or _something_. She can hear them pounding against the door, she can hear the glass cracking.

 

“Over here!” Kylo yells from across the room, “A roof access!”

 

The glass shatters and they spill into the tiny convenience store like water over a dam. “Fuck!” They’re hot on her trail as she vaults over the shelves towards where Kylo is waiting, shotgun in hand, leveling it over her head. She ducks as she rushes past him and he fires into the horde before slamming the door hard behind them. There’s a lock, thank god, however counterintuitive it may seem to have a lock on the outside of a roof access, Rey doesn’t care, they’re safe. Except Kylo doesn’t seem to think so. As the beasts outside slam on the door Kylo grabs her wrist again and drags her up the rusty, grated stairs to a ladder, that leads to a hatch that leads to the roof. He goes up first and she’s right behind him until he stops abruptly and she slips, barely keeping her hold on the bars. 

 

“What the--”

 

“Shh!” He hushes her as he slowly lifts the ancient hatch, gun in hand, ready to fire. The hinges squeak and they both cringe, expecting to hear the familiar howling of zombies from the roof. But they are met with blissful silence, save for the ones beating on the door behind them. 

 

“It’s safe,” he says, pulling himself out and onto the roof, “Come on.”

 

She tugs herself out after him and the cut on her back protests. She freezes where she sits on her hands and knees. She hasn’t been _cut_ by one of those things before, and she knows a bite can turn someone, but can a scratch? Did it have blood on it’s fingers? Is she infected now?

 

Kylo is standing on the edge of the roof, looking out onto the horde that surrounds them now. 

 

She calls out to him, trying not to sound too frightened, “Kylo?”

 

He turns quickly and almost aggressively, not hearing the fear in her voice he snaps at her, irritated that she interrupted his strategizing, and no doubt upset because this is all her fault in the first place, “What?!”

 

She grimaces away from him, and his eyes soften as he sees the look of utter terror on her face, “Rey, what is it?” 

 

He comes to kneel in front of her like he did the night she ate that first meal, and she looks up at him, afraid of how he might answer her next question, “One of them--”

 

“Shit!” He hisses, cutting her off, “Were you bitten?” His knuckles go white on his shotgun, and she swears she sees his finger hesitate over the trigger for a moment.

 

“No! No.” She says, rising up onto her knees so they’re eye to eye, “But one of them scratched me, could I be sick now?” Her breathing picks up and she starts to panic, she drops her head into her hands and gasps. She can’t die here, not yet. She doesn’t know what she has left to do now that the world has ended, but there has to be _some_ use for her. She can’t be done yet.

 

“Shh, Rey, relax.” He says, placing a hand on her shoulder, “You’re not infected. It only spreads through saliva, you’re not infected.”

 

She practically sobs with relief at this revelation, “Oh thank God.”

 

“Just…” he seems unsure how to comfort her, “Just stay here and collect yourself, I’m going to survey exactly what we’ve got to work with.”

 

She sits there for a moment, with her head in her hands and her eyes closed, steadying her breathing. How does he know how the infection spreads? Maybe he has been scratched before and he came to the conclusion on his own, maybe this is part of what he’s hiding from her. She files it away with the rest of the things that make Kylo particularly frightening, and rises slowly to her feet. 

 

Kylo is to her left, looking out at his truck and cursing to himself. She can’t see it but she guesses it’s surrounded by zombies. When she turns to her right she’s surprised to see an electric lantern and a nylon sleeping bag laid out along with a few bottles of water and some bags of chips, likely from the store below. She approaches it, going to see if the nylon is worn, how long it has been there, when something cracks under her foot. She leans down and picks it up. It’s a white plastic name tag, covered in dirt and grime. It reads “HI I’M;” in bold black text, and scrawled beneath it in black sharpie, faded by the weather, is the name Matthew. She pockets it. Someone ought to remember him. It might as well be her. 

 

She wonders if that’s the worker she had seen in the parking lot, scratching at the hood of the truck. “Kylo,” she calls softly, “Come look at this.” She flicks on the lantern, and studies the area in the light. There’s nothing of interest besides the sleeping bag and the bottled water. The chip bag is empty upon closer inspection.

 

“Nylon,” he says as he rubs the fabric between his fingers, “This will be useful if it rains tonight.”

 

She looks up to find that the stars and the moon are nowhere to be seen, obscured by a vast expanse of clouds. The air is heavy and humid with impending rain. She looks back to him, lips parted and brow furrowed, “I’m not getting under that thing with you, rain or no.”

 

He laughs aloud and lifts the bag up, “Enjoy the rain then. You need a shower anyways.” 

 

She knows she really shouldn’t, considering that they’re surrounded by the night of the living dead, but she takes the bait, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” She steps forward so she’s standing directly in front of him, close enough that he has to look down his nose to make eye contact.

 

The bastard smirks at her, “It means you haven’t bathed since long before I found you, you’re covered in dirt and you reek like swamp water. I’m surprised that you can’t walk through the hordes undetected, the way you smell.”

 

She slams the heels of her hands into his chest roughly, trying to shove him back, but he doesn’t budge, “Oh, like you’ve had time to bathe? You don’t smell much better than I do, you absolute ass!” 

 

He just rolls his eyes and turns away from her, taking the sleeping bag with him back to the side of the roof that overlooks his truck. As she watches him go she notices that his hair isn’t greasy, and his skin is relatively free of dirt, things that denote him having bathed sometime in the last few days. Not to mention his clothes are relatively clean, and so are the ones he gave to her. Another piece to the Kylo puzzle; how is he so hygienic in the middle of the fucking apocalypse? 

 

She sits with the lantern for a while, on the opposite side of the roof from him, holding Matthew’s name tag in her hand, rolling it over and over, wondering what sort of person he was, what kind of life he lived. Was he saving money for college? Was he already attending college? Maybe this job was all he wanted, and he had decided to settle in rural Georgia and live the simple life. 

 

It starts to rain, and she has an idea. 

 

“Kylo,” She calls to him, approaching from behind. He’s already sheltered under the sleeping bag, even though the rain has barely begun to fall. “I’m going to take a shower, keep my clothes under there with you, will you? I don’t want them to get soaked.” 

 

He’s shifts to look at her, one eyebrow raised and eyes questioning. He looks ridiculous huddling under the sleeping bag, like an oversized Russian babushka, “Rey, I was just--”

 

But she’s already tossing her jacket at him, “You were the one complaining about how I stink. Now turn around, no peeking.” 

 

He does, facing away from her and sitting stock still as she finishes undressing, she can practically taste his discomfort and she laughs aloud as she tosses the last article of her clothing, her jeans, over his head. She decides to keep her underwear--practical cotton--with her. Partially because she doesn’t want him anywhere near them, and also because this is her original pair; dirty and fouled by the weeks of travel. They need washed even more desperately than she does. Rey’s grateful that her period hasn’t come in the time she’s been on the move, likely because of the malnutrition she’s suffered. She had read once that menstruation was one of the first things to stop when the body was under significant duress for extended periods of time. Thank God for biology, it’s likely saved her life. She’s also glad that she had decided not to bother with bras when the outbreak began, her breasts are small enough that running doesn’t present any real problem and now she doesn’t have to deal with the embarrassment of him seeing it.

 

The rain starts to come down harder, it’s not quite pouring, but it’s enough to clean her. She takes the moment of quiet and rainfall to relax. Her muscles feel like they’ve been clenched and tensed for eons, and her eyes ache in her skull. She lets her arms fall limp at her sides and closes her eyes, tilting her head back and letting the raindrops massage their lids. It has been so long since she’s felt anything other than grimey, since she’s felt normal and clean. How odd that she would find this tiny facet of normalcy here; standing on a roof, naked, with a stranger keeping guard over her clothes. She chuckles to herself, the first time she’s really laughed in a long time. It’s hard to find humor in anything now, but she has to try.

 

“Kylo?” She calls out to him once she’s run her fingers through her tangled hair and she’s sure she’s sure she’s sufficiently cleaned, “Can you ball my clothes up and toss them behind you?”

 

He doesn’t say anything, but he complies. The clothes are lobbed gently over his sleeping bag covered head and she catches them easily. She dresses quickly, trying to keep her clothing from becoming completely drenched. She succeeds for the most part, her clothes only slightly damp, save for the wet patch where she shoved her panties into the pocket of her windbreaker. She’ll go commando until they’re dry, she decides. 

 

When she slides under one of the far corners of the sleeping bag Kylo jolts, his grip tightening on his gun, then loosening. “I thought you weren’t willing to take shelter with me?”

 

“Things changed.” She says, and tugs the lantern under the bag after her. “It’s wet and I don’t want to get sick.”

 

“That’s an urban legend.” he says, “The rain won’t make you sick.”

 

She scowls, “I’m not risking it.”

 

And they sit, awkwardly, with as much space between the two of them as possible, in an uncomfortable silence for several long minutes. It begins to pour and she’s glad for her decision to join him under the bag. Rey has just begun to tap out a beat on the roof with the drumming of the raindrops when Kylo clears his throat and speaks, “...So, what’s your story?”

 

She shoots him a glance from the corner of her eye and scoffs. “Why should I tell you anything? You won’t tell me anything.”

 

“I--” And then the wind blows hard in their direction sending sheets of rain directly into their makeshift shelter, drenching them both straight through to the bone. 

 

“Shit,” Rey curses, wiping the water out of her eyes with the back of her hand. “I hate the rain.” She swears she can hear thunder in the distance.

 

“I used to love it,” Kylo comments as he shucks off the sleeping bag and stomps over towards the hatch that leads back into the convenience store. He lifts it and peers in, then slams it back into place. “That’s a no go!” He calls out to her over the roar of the storm. The zombies must’ve broken down the door.

 

Once he’s back under the nylon with her, they hear it again, this time more distinct; a clap of thunder. Rey looks to him, gauging his reaction to what could quite possibly have been their death knell. He looks just as fearful as she feels for a fraction of a second, and then it shifts into pure determination, like he’s dealt with this kind of life or death situation before. He stands and promptly kicks her lantern off the roof.

 

“What--”

 

“Listen to me,” he cuts her off and lightning flashes behind them, Rey counts five Mississippi's until the resounding thunder nearly deafens her, “Stand up and help me zip this thing!”

 

She does as he asks without complaint, the wind whipping her newly untangled hair into her face as she struggles to fold the sleeping bags corners together. But suddenly Kylo’s behind her, helping her in zipping the thing up in one fluid motion. 

 

He throws it down and motions for her to get it. She understands what he has planned, and _why_ this is their best option at the moment; stay low, avoid lightning strikes, huddle for warmth, avoid hypothermia. Granted they’re soaked to the bone and trapped on a roof, so how effective the measures he’s taking will be is up in the air. 

 

She gets in, albeit reluctantly, and he follows close behind, tucking himself in face to face with her. He manages to zip the thing shut from the inside with a bit of struggling and cursing, until there is only a small corner at the very top left as an air vent. She groans as he shifts a bit and their legs tangle together; a position far too intimate for her taste. Thunder claps overhead, and even through the fabric of the sleeping bag Rey can see the flash of lightning, and it’s quickly becoming apparent that this storm isn’t going to just blow over like the afternoon gales in Florida so often did. They’re going to be stuck here for a while. 

 

Rey is pressed against his chest, damp but warm. She can feel his breath over her head and hear the slowing beat of his heart. She’s never been this close to a man before, and she can feel herself flushing from the tips of her toes to her scalp. He may be crazy, but he’s attractive as all hell, and determined to keep _both_ of them alive. She tries to ignore the sudden uncomfortable warmth between her legs. 

 

Then he speaks and she practically melts from sheer embarrassment, “You smell much better now.” The rumble of his voice low in his chest certainly doesn’t help.

 

She ignores him, trying to maintain some veneer of indignancy to the situation. 

 

Eventually his breathing evens out, and his body relaxes against hers. He’s asleep, despite the thunder. She closes her eyes and pretends that she’s somewhere else, anywhere else. Finally, and miraculously, she falls asleep too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are deeply appreciated! :)


	5. Peanuts

Rey wakes the next morning warm, confused, and still soaking wet. For a brief, blissful moment she doesn’t know where she is. Her whole reality is the strange damp warmth wrapped around her, and the sweet sensation of waking up from her first good night’s rest in what feels like an eternity. And then she remembers the night before, and all the days before that, and she realizes that the warmth enveloping her is Kylo. 

 

His arms are wrapped tightly around her waist, he’s clutching her to his chest in his sleep, his nose pressed into her hair. Part of her, a very large part of her, wants to shove him away, to punch him in his stupid face and ask just what the fuck he was thinking. Another, smaller, more rational part of herself reasons that this is unintentional, that this is just something that happens when two people sleep so close to one another, she should just let him wake up on his own. And then there is the miniscule, infinitesimal part of herself that whispers softly in her subconscious to _move closer_ , let him hold her, let him keep her safe. She ignores all three and manages to shimmy her way out of the bag, accidentally waking Kylo when her elbow connects with his face. 

 

“Ow! What the--” He cuts himself off and shakes his head from side to side. 

 

Rey ignores him and stretches, lifting her arms high above her head and lacing her fingers. She puffs her chest out and groans as her elbows pop. It’s sunny, and the air carries the scent of damp earth, the birds are singing, and for the first time in a long time she takes a moment to appreciate being alive. More people than she can, or would even like to imagine have lost their lives in this hell; so many people will never see another sunrise through clear, human eyes again. 

 

“Rey,” Kylo calls out to her, “They’re gone.” He’s standing on the edge of the roof, looking down into the parking lot, the side of one hand pressed against his forehead to block the light of the rising sun.

 

“What?” She jogs over and stands beside him, taking in the scene with muted optimism. The parking lot is empty save for the few zombies that they had shot the night before, scattered over the pavement, curled in on themselves like the husks of dead cockroaches. 

 

“They’re attracted to sound. They might’ve followed the storm when it finally blew over.” Kylo speculates. Then, without warning, _he jumps off of the fucking roof_. 

 

Rey takes a step away from the edge, eyes wide and brow furrowed, and she wonders for a heartbeat if the idiot has just tried to kill himself by jumping fifteen feet onto concrete. 

 

“You coming?” He calls from the ground. And she steps forward again to find him standing upright with no sign of injury.

 

“Like hell I’m going to jump from up here.” She quips, “I’ll take the ladder, thanks.” 

 

“Rey, you can’t.” He’s looking in the direction of what Rey assumes to be the shop windows, “There could still be some hiding out in there. Come on, I’ll catch you.”

 

Damn it, he’s right; she knows he’s right. And she wishes to God that she could jump and land on her own, but it’s not an option with her injured foot, she’d just reinjure the ankle. He seems genuine in his offer to catch her, he’s standing below her, arms outstretched, waiting impatiently. 

 

“Come on, Rey. We don’t have all day.” He growls, and she throws herself at him, hoping that she’ll fucking knock him onto his ass if she catches him by surprise. 

 

No such luck. His arms catch around her waist just before her toes hit the ground, he takes a few steps back from the momentum, for a single uncomfortable second she’s held to his chest like one might embrace a lover; then he lets her go, setting her gently onto her feet. Neither of them says anything after that.

 

Once they reach the truck he drops the tailgate and starts to shift around inside. He pulls out a large fatigue green duffle bag. He drops it haphazardly on the concrete and starts to shift through it. He produces two bundles of clothing and tosses one at her. 

 

“We need to get out of these wet clothes,” he explains, already tugging the damp fabric of his t-shirt over his head. She looks away, blushing and clutching her clothing tight to her chest. He’s very… _fit_ , and she can’t help but notice the tattoo that covers his left shoulder and part of his left pectoral. 

 

“No need to be embarrassed, just keep an eye on the storefront while I change, and I’ll do the same for you. It’s the only place where any of them could still be hiding.” 

 

 _Quid pro quo, right_? She turns to face the storefront like he asked. Not saying a word as she listens to the rustling of fabric behind her. She’s blushing to the tips of her ears, her whole face flushed. She berates herself for her bashfulness; how could she possibly be embarrassed by this when she had spent an entire night chest to chest with this man, had _showered_ with him keeping guard less than twenty feet away. But now it’s he who’s naked and she’d be blind if she hadn’t taken note of how oddly attractive he is. It’s not conventional, his ears are a bit too big, his lips too full; but he’s broad with dark hair and dark eyes, there’s something alluring about him, and it frustrates her. 

 

Something had glinted in the sunlight, before she had looked away. Something around his neck. A necklace?

 

“Alright,” He approaches her from behind and drops his wet clothes into the trashcan next to the gas pump. “Your turn.” 

 

She goes around to where he had been, behind the tailgate, and sets the clothes on it. They’re all men’s, of course. He probably doesn’t have many women’s mediums laying around. She pulls on the t-shirt and it hangs around her like a dress. The pants he’s given her are even worse, she doesn’t have to take off her boots to pull them on, but at least he’s provided a belt. She makes sure to tuck the gun he had given her the night before into her waistband; she hopes he doesn’t take it back. She knows she better mention it to him though, so he doesn’t assume she’s trying to kill him or take his stuff and make a run for it.

 

When she comes back around to the passenger side he taps the trashcan lightly, looking between it and the bundle of wet clothing in her arms. 

 

“Shouldn’t we hold onto this stuff?” She asks, “You know, let it dry so we can use it again later?”

 

He ‘tsks’ and shakes his head, “Nah, sweetheart. We’re going to be crammed in a truck all day, we don’t have anywhere to lay it out. I promise we’ll stop somewhere and get you some better fitting clothes.” He looks her up and down like he appreciates the sight of her in his clothing. 

 

She flushes and tosses the ruined garments into the trashcan; panties and all. Like he said, they’ll find more later.

 

“Can I keep the handgun you gave me?” She asks, pulling it from her waistband and offering it to him anyways, the last thing she wants to do is appear threatening.

 

He pushes it back towards her, his fingers brushing over her’s, “Keep it. You never know when you might need it.” 

 

He shoulders his shotgun and looks back towards the convenience store, “Wait here for a minute, I’m going to make one last sweep of the building, see if there’s anything useful in there.”

 

She nods and he’s off, jogging towards the storefront. She turns and as she’s opening the passenger side door she notices the brim of a hat peeking out from under the truck. She hops backwards leveling her weapon with the top of the things head, but it doesn’t move. Upon closer inspection she finds that it’s the Gas’N’Go employee that she had seen the night before, Matthew had been his name. She didn’t think that they had shot him, but maybe they did. Suddenly she remembers that she had tucked his name tag into the pocket of the jacket she has just thrown away. She rushes over to the trashcan, finding her jacket perched conveniently on the top of the pile. She reaches into the pocket, past her drenched panties and tugs it out. 

 

“What’s that?” Kylo materializes behind her and she jumps, finger on the trigger, ready to fire. “Hey, hey. Easy Rey, it’s just me. Also, basic gun etiquette; don’t put your finger on the trigger unless you’re going to shoot.”

 

“Sure, sorry, you just startled me.” She pockets the name tag and makes a mental note to not forget it next time she changes clothes, which will be soon hopefully. “It’s just an employee name tag I found on the roof. I think it belonged to him.” She jerks her head in the direction of the corpse under the truck, “I just feel like I should remember who he was, since I have the opportunity.” 

 

“Ah, I see.” he’s holding a plastic bag in his right hand, it hangs at his side, bumping his knee. “You don’t owe them anything Rey, they weren’t smart enough to make it on their own. Why should they be remembered?”

 

Her lip curls a little and she climbs into the cab of the truck. He pulls something from the plastic bag quickly, trying to be discrete, and shoves whatever it is into the pocket of his cargo pants. Then he tosses the bag onto the floor in front of her, “Peanuts and some other food stuff. Eat them sparingly.”

 

She chooses to ignore whatever it was he had shoved into his pocket--he’s weird like that, she's used to it by now-- and grabs one of the small bags of peanuts tearing it open eagerly, dropping a few on the floor in her rush. She hasn’t eaten in over twenty four hours. She shoves a handful into her mouth and chews while Kylo walks around to the other side of the truck; he tucks his shotgun under the seat and looks at her, there’s a sudden sympathy in his eyes. Like he thinks her naive for holding onto something as trivial as a nametag.

 

“If it makes you feel any better,” he climbs in and shuts the door behind himself, “Neither of us killed him. He was already injured before, he probably bled out in the night and dragged himself under the truck.” 

 

 _Like a wounded animal might; isolating itself, hiding away while it dies_.

 

He twists the key in the ignition and the truck whirs to life. Rey grimaces at the loud thump and subsequent jolt as they run over the body. 

 

“There’s a pill bottle in the glove compartment,” he says, “Antibiotics. Take one, we need to make sure your foot heals.” 

 

She does so without complaint, swallowing the pill dry. Now that he’s mentioned it, her foot is sore. She’d been so focused on staying alive that she had forgotten to be mindful of it. 

 

“How do you know it wasn’t one of ours?” She asks testily; she doesn't appreciate his pity.

 

“The only one you shot was right in front of the doors, and I remember the faces of everyone I kill.” He deadpans, like killing is something he does often, like he’s fought through waves of these things before. 

 

_Everyone, or every one?_ It makes a difference. 

 

Rey changes the subject quickly, eager to avoid any more talk of killing, especially with him; “You said that they can bleed to death? How? I thought that they were dead.” 

 

He taps his thumbs rhythmically on the steering wheel, “Dead things can’t walk, Rey. They can’t breathe, or move, or _bite_. These things are just sick people.” 

 

“You say that, but you have no problem with killing them in droves,” She prods, hoping to get some sort of explanation from him. _Tell me something about yourself, anything_. 

 

“I should rephrase,” he chuckles, dark and low, “They’re just sick animals.” 

 

“What?” Is he really that twisted, that he doesn’t see them as people anymore? _Does he have a point?_ She shudders at the thought. 

 

“Their brains are fried, Rey. They aren’t people anymore, just mindless drones, vectors of the virus.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a compass, glances at the face of it, and shoves it back into his pocket. He makes a sudden right turn down a narrow one way street.

 

“How could you possibly know that, Kylo?” She snaps, “You said it yourself! They’re just sick!” The words flow out of her in a rush, she’s desperate and tired of walking on eggshells around him, she doesn’t think this time she just acts, foolishly, “We could help them! We need to get back to the CDC, there has to be someone there! Someone has to be alive! And even if they aren’t if we could just find the research on--”

 

He slams the breaks hard, launching her forward until her seatbelt locks and catches her, knocking the breath from her. He pounds his fists hard against the steering wheel, “The CDC is gone Rey! It’s fucking gone! I’ve been there and there’s nothing left! It’s the epicenter of the virus, it was fucking obliterated in the initial outbreak!" He slumps against the wheel, defeated. "Everyone’s dead. Fuck.” 

 

They sit still, Kylo’s foot pressed hard onto the break. It’s like the reality of their situation is dawning on the both of them for the first time. They’re alone, completely alone, everyone Rey has ever known is likely dead. It feels like the walls of the truck are crumpling in on her, like someone’s stepping on an aluminum can and she’s a worker ant trapped inside. She can’t breathe; Finn, Poe, Jess, everyone is gone, _and she left them to die_.

 

“I-I,” a sob wracks her body and she curls in on herself, “I left them, Kylo. I left them all.” Tears roll hot and fat down her face and she hates herself for crying in front of this man but she can’t help it, the grief is all-encompassing and overwhelming. “They--fuck--they wanted to go to one of the stupid CDC things,” her voice quavers and her chest heaves on another sob, “And I just left! I-I didn’t realize how bad it was. I didn’t know.” 

 

He wraps an arm around her shoulder and pulls her roughly into his side, she can feel where his face presses into her hair and she knows that she should pull away; that she should be frightened or disgusted, but she isn’t. She’s been alone for so long, lost and afraid. She buries her face into his chest and sobs, clinging to him like he’s her anchor to the world. She needs someone, _anyone_ , to hold her and reassure her that she’s not alone, not anymore. 

 

He doesn’t say anything while she cries. Just clutches her over the center console and rocks. She appreciates the silence, there’s nothing he could say that could make this pain go away. These are demons she has to face on her own; her decisions, her actions, her consequences to bear. 

 

After several minutes of ugly crying, she manages to calm herself down. She pulls away straightens her shirt and wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. She looks to Kylo and finds him watching her with genuine concern written across his features. He reaches up and swipes a stray tear away with the pad of his thumb. She doesn’t have the energy to pull back or snap at him, maybe she doesn’t want to at all. 

 

“I’m sorry about your shirt,” she says softly. Taking note of the wet patches she left on the gray fabric. 

 

“Don’t worry about it,” He says, in a pathetic attempt at lightening the mood, “It’ll dry. You don’t even begin to compete with thunderstorms.” 

 

She nods and grips the loose fabric of her borrowed pants tightly in her fists. 

 

They drive for several hours in labored silence. It’s heavy and it hangs over them like a headman’s axe. They’ve both revealed things about themselves today that they weren’t ready to. Rey now knows that Kylo was somehow involved at the CDC, he’s too torn up over the loss of it for him to not have been. But in turn he now knows that she’s scum, that she abandoned her friends and left them to die in some stupid, pointless camp. 

 

It’s well past noon when he finally breaks the silence. Not looking at her while he offers his own sort of condolences, “You would’ve died if you’d gone to one of the containment camps or treatment facilities, they all failed.” 

 

She grits her teeth, wondering if he knows that he just confirmed the deaths of her closest friends. “Thanks.”

 

After another moment of tense silence she follows up with; “I wish I had gone with them. I owed them that much.”

 

His knuckles go white on the steering wheel, but he manages to maintain his calm demeanor. “What were they like?” 

 

He’s attempting to diffuse the situation, to talk her down. She’s not even on the edge, not yet anyways. She decides to humor him, “They were my best friends, Finn, Poe and Jess. I loved them.”

 

She wants to leave it at that, but he waits patiently like he expects more, so she continues hesitantly; “We were all students at The University of Florida, in Gainesville. I met them there. Jess was my roommate and Finn lived on the floor above us. Finn was the smartest, he wanted to be a teacher, early childhood education. Everyone kept telling him that he was wasting his talents, but he wouldn’t listen. I’m glad he didn’t. Jess and I were both in the engineering program, she wanted to work on planes. Poe was our professor, but we were on a first name basis with him; he’s the one who pulled some strings and got me a full ride.”

 

Then she repeats herself, more quietly this time, reaffirming for herself one simple truth, “I loved them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woot, another chapter up. I hope you enjoyed it! I respond to all comments and smile at every kudos I get :)


	6. Tires

They stop the next day at a Walmart somewhere in Alabama. It wouldn’t have been Rey’s first choice, but she supposes that beggars can’t be choosers, and Kylo’s jeans are becoming quite uncomfortable, chafing around her legs. Her foot has begun to bother her again too. Where before she had been functioning on heightened adrenaline in the face of imminent danger; her body has had time to calm now and take stock of the damage done to it. Her ankle is especially tender, new bruises rising to the surface of her skin. But the wound itself is still healing nicely. Kylo even insisted on stopping once so he could rewrap it, and it had been scabbed and unpleasant to look at, but no longer inflamed and weeping with pus. He had also waylaid any of her remaining fear of tetanus, reminding her that schools required students be vaccinated, and if she had attended her senior year of high school in the U.S. like she claimed, she was safe. 

 

Before they pull into the parking lot, Kylo stops on the opposite side of the road, near a row of small burned out houses and tells her to stay in the car. He opens his door stepping out onto the asphalt and reaches behind his seat to retrieve his sniper rifle. He levels the scope of the weapon with the building and peers through. 

 

Rey unbuckles and leans over, peeking past Kylo’s side to see if she can discern what he’s looking for. She can’t make out much besides a few abandoned cars and ruined shopping carts. 

 

“What are you looking for?” She asks. 

 

“Bandits, zombies, the usual fare,” He quips, “I don’t see anything, but we still need to be careful on the approach. You still have that gun?”

 

“Yep.” She tugs it from her waistband and shows it to him, “I’m going to bring my bat too, guns are awfully loud.”

 

He gets back into the truck and turns the key in the ignition. “If one gets close enough to hit with a bat, chances are you’re already dead.” He drives slowly towards the store, not paying her much attention as he looks through the front windows cautiously.

 

“Not true,” she says, non argumentative, “I’ve used it plenty of times, and I’m still alive. I’ve been face to face with one before,” she hesitates for a moment, unsure if she wants to reveal even more of her past to him, but eventually she continues. They need to work past this distrust, _she_ needs to work past it, if she ever wants to learn the truth about this man, “I was just over the Georgia border, heading north through some woods. It was dark and I was dumb to keep moving in the night, but I wanted to get to Atlanta so badly. I was so tired I didn’t hear one of them sneak up on me. It grabbed me with one hand and I managed to turn around and scrape it with the nail in my bat, it screamed and let go and I bashed its head in.” She doesn’t mention that it had been a child, a boy, twelve at the most. She hasn’t come to terms with it yet. Kylo would probably say that its age is irrelevant, that it was an animal that needed to be put down. 

 

He parks in a space even though it hardly matters, “Impressive, but I didn’t see it, so there’s no proof that it actually happened.” 

 

He’s teasing her. She chooses to ignore him as she climbs out of the cab, baseball bat tucked into her belt. She checks to make sure that the handgun is secure on the other side. 

 

“Before we go in, I want you to have these,” Kylo comes to stand beside her and pulls two magazines from his pockets, loaded with bullets, “If we get separated and you’re in a jam, don’t be afraid to use that Glock.”

 

“I won’t be,” she hesitates for a moment, she doesn’t actually know how to reload the gun, “Um...Kylo?”

 

He’s already begun to walk away, “What is it?”

 

“I...uh...I don’t know how to load the gun?” She holds it in the air, being mindful and keeping her finger off of the trigger. 

 

“Oh,” he turns around, “Alright bring it here, I’ll show you.”

 

She hands him the gun and he holds it between them, pointing to a button beside the trigger, “This is how you eject the magazine--the thing that holds the bullets--if we were at a gun range you would just use the same one and reload it once it was empty. But here there isn’t time for that, which is why I gave you those extra magazines. I doubt you’ll need them, you have seventeen rounds in just one mag, but I’d rather you be prepared.” He takes one of the mags from her and flips it, showing that it is numbered up one side, “This side faces backward,” he flips it again and points to a small notch on the front of the mag, “And this side faces forward, towards the barrel.” 

 

“Got it?” He presses the Glock into her right hand and the mag into her left. She pockets the mags and tucks the gun back into her belt.

 

“Got it.” She nods. 

 

“Alright,” He smiles at her and she smiles back. It’s genuine. 

 

They walk towards the storefront slowly, side by side, clutching their weapons tightly. Kylo is much better armed than she; he has his sniper rifle neatly slung over one shoulder by a fatigue green strap, and his shotgun held in his right hand. She also takes note of the long, serrated combat knife he has clipped to his belt. He really is a walking arsenal, if she stays close to him she should be fine.

 

Both sets of sliding glass doors are stuck halfway open, and inside the store looks very dark. Kylo holds his pointer finger over his lips, signaling for dead silence as they slowly creep through the second set of doors. He holds out an arm to stop her just over the threshold as he gives the area a cursory glance.

 

The store is lit by the emergency lights that have come on, dim and orangish in hue, they cast long dark shadows across the dirty tile floor. It takes a moment for Rey’s eyes to adjust to the low lighting, but once they do she is able to make out the bold white lettering on the directional aisle signs. Toiletries? No. Electronics? No. Clothing? Yes. She motions for Kylo to follow her to their left, he keeps up the rear while she leads. They hold tight to shelves and racks as they make their way towards the women’s clothing department, letting the objects hide their shadows and hoping that they blend well enough in the darkness to not be noticed by any undesirables. 

 

The store is surprisingly well stocked, at least in clothing. Rey is willing to bet that the food and first aid departments have been thoroughly picked over. After the word spread of the initial outbreak in Atlanta there had been a rush on department and drug stores, in the chaos it had quickly devolved into looting. She had stayed in her dorm, not yet realizing exactly how serious the situation was. 

 

Walmart doesn’t have the best variety of clothing, it’s low quality, and not anything she would wear if she were given the choice, but they have her sizes. She grabs a large purse off of one of the racks and starts to stuff it full of essentials; jeans, socks, t-shirts, a jacket, and she even grabs two six packs of cotton jockey panties. She has hated not having anything to protect her _unmentionables_ from chaffing in Kylo’s too big jeans over the last day. She makes sure the bag is fastened tight and throws it over her shoulder. 

 

Kylo eyes the purse she has stuffed all of her goods into and scowls. “I should’ve given you a backpack,” he whispers. 

 

Rey smirks and nods in agreement, then motions for them to start back towards the exit. But Kylo shakes his head, and gestures for her to follow him instead. She figures that now is hardly the time to argue, so she follows, albeit reluctantly. She really just wants to get out of here, it’s dark and creepy and she’s nearly certain that there are zombies in here _somewhere_. The longer they stay the more the risk of incident increases. She wishes that there were a way for her to voice this concern to him now, but she knows that if she tries one of them will inevitably raise their voice and get them killed. 

 

He leads her to the groceries, which, much to her surprise, also aren’t picked clean. She can see a display of bread that looks virtually untouched, though it’s probably all gone stale by now. 

 

“Rey,” Kylo breathes, barely audible, “Split up and meet back here, you look for dry goods, I’ll look for some cases of bottled water. Come back here as soon as you’re done.” 

 

Split up? Is he insane? “This wasn’t supposed to be a supply run,” she hisses.

 

“Well, I’m making it one.” He raises his voice a little and Rey throws her hands up in the air to warn him to _keep it the fuck down_. 

 

They both wait with bated breath for a long, tense moment, listening for any signs that they’ve been noticed. Nothing. Kylo indicates that Rey should go left, while he goes right. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes, but does as he bids. She could just leave, refuse to take any part in this insanity and walk out, go to wait by the truck; but that feels too close to abandonment, and they’ve worked beyond that by now, she thinks. She won’t leave him in here to die. 

 

She holds tight to the shelves as she hunts for whatever constitutes ‘dry goods’. She assumes he means things like crackers or boxed granola. She navigates her way to the appropriate aisle, gun clutched close to her chest all the while, thunderous silence pressing down on her because suddenly she is so _very_ alone again. She could be anywhere; her dark, damp room at Unkar Plutt’s residence, wrapped in the silence of an empty dorm room, surrounded by a thousand million hulking trees, casting long foreboding shadows over her wounded form as she trudges through the Georgia wilds, looking fruitlessly for the yellow brick road that will take her directly to Atlanta and the CDC. This is what the loneliness, even for a fraction of a moment, does to her. She’s been with Kylo for nine days, less than two weeks, and she’s already become dependent on him for company, he is a noise to detract from the pervasive silence that surrounds her constantly.

 

And now, here she is, standing at the far end of the cereal aisle, frozen in the throes of a panic attack, and staring down what is quite possibly one of the most horrific scenes she’s ever witnessed. On the opposite end are installed what had once been the cases which held meat; ground beef, raw bacon, turkey and the like. She can _smell it_ from where she’s standing twenty feet away, practically taste the rancid flesh from across the space. But that’s not what horrifies her, no, the reeking rot barely registers next to what surrounds it. It suddenly makes perfect sense that this store has managed to remain so well stocked through the apocalypse.

 

Zombies. There must be at least two dozen of them, and that’s only within her line of sight. They’ve surrounded the cases and are pressing against them with bloody faces and fingers, moaning and clawing for meat that they’ve long since ingested; the gore of it covers them, their faces smeared with rotting flesh and black, viscous fluids. They’re like dogs waiting by an empty food dish, whining for more. Most of the meat is gone from the cases, the stench is coming from _them_. Rey backs away slowly, watching them all the way, she’s just about to turn and make a break for it when a resounding _slam_ resonates through the aisles. Kylo has dropped something. 

 

There is a long moment, an eternity, where Rey is frozen in place, watching in utter horror as the horde comes to life; hissing and twitching and making that god damned _wet_ clicking sound in the backs of their throats. She can’t breathe, can’t _think_ she’s so afraid. Then one of them sees her. Its dead graying eyes lock onto her and it _bellows_ to the rest of them. 

 

She turns and runs. In the same moment she thinks she hears Kylo call out for her over what could be miles of shelves, but the thundering of her heart in her ears and the sound of her breath being torn from her lungs on each footfall obscures it. She runs in a straight line, back through the clothing, knocking down racks as she goes. One of them trips and is propelled towards her by its own momentum, its bloodied, crooked fingers catch on her shirt and tear the fabric down the back, exposing a vast expanse of her skin and leaving several long, shallow cuts in their wake. She hardly notices as she keeps going, her ankle _screaming_ as she exacerbates her previous injuries. 

 

She makes it to a high shelf on the opposite wall of the store; tires. She starts to climb without so much as a glance over her shoulder, she doesn’t want to know just how close they actually are. She nearly falls twice, as the tires she’s using as footholds slide off of the thin metal shelving. 

 

“Shit!” She hisses as another goes tumbling down into the snapping jaws of her pursuers. One of them squeals as it’s knocked to the floor by the impact. 

 

She makes it to the top, panting, soaked with sweat, and--by the grace of God--still clutching her purse full of clothing. She tosses it to her left, so it leans against a stack of tires, then she rests her shoulder and head against the stack to her right. Rey can hear them below, sniffing and growling and clawing at the tires as they attempt to reach her; but their fine motor skills are clearly affected by whatever virus controls them, and they never make it more than two shelves above the ground before they go tumbling to the floor, landing with the disgusting wet smack one might hear if they were to drop a raw steak onto linoleum. 

 

For a moment Rey fears that the shelf might not be enough to maintain her weight for long, but it is meant to hold tires, stacks of them at a time. So she rests back against the sheet rock wall and closes her eyes, thinking. How quickly this had fallen apart astounds her, things had been going so well too. If Kylo hadn’t decided--

 

 _Kylo_. 

 

He could be dead. She had heard him call out to her as she fled, she’s almost certain of it, but that was the last indication she had that he was still breathing. Rey doesn’t know if he was being chased, if the horde had noticed him or not, how many more of the creatures were in the store _to_ notice him. She glances down at her posse again, taking a rough head count. Twenty, give or take. Not large enough to account for the bulk of a horde, and where one zombie is, a group is likely not far behind. It’s safe to assume that Kylo was also attacked, possibly by a larger number than she. But he’s far more skilled and prepared than Rey is. If she has made it to safety, Kylo definitely has, she hopes. 

 

_Please don’t let him be dead_

 

The panic begins to rise within her for the second time that day, the fear that she will be left alone, _completely and utterly abandoned_ , wells up like a geyser from deep in her chest. She presses her face into her hands and finds her cheeks damp with sweat and trailed with hot tears. This is too much, it’s all too much. She wishes that Kylo had left her to die on the side of the road, had let her bake in the Georgia heat. She wishes that she had never met him, because now she is dependent on him. She _needs_ him, despite all of his secrecy and arrogance he has become her one tie to the world, the one thing keeping her from losing her _god damned mind_. 

 

If she had reached the CDC, and found it empty and in ruins as Kylo has described, she would’ve cut her wrists with the nail embedded in her Louisville Slugger and ended it there. Knowing that she had abandoned her friends was bad enough, but to discover it was all for naught? She wouldn’t have been able to stand under the weight of her own decisions. He has saved her life twice, at least. And now he could be dead, or worse, he may well think her dead and leave her here. 

 

She slams her fist hard into the metal shelf; it quivers and lets out a clang of protest. Her knuckles ache, and she can hear the horde below becoming more agitated at the sound. She lets her head slam back against the wall and resigns herself to her fate. She’s never felt so fatalistic before, so complacent in her perceived place. 

 

 _He’s not coming back, he’s not coming back, he’s not coming back…_ She repeats over and over again, the words bouncing in her skull and making her head pound with the cruelty of it. What else should she expect? No one has ever stayed long. Why would Kylo? He’s known her for all of nine days, five when taking into account her period of unconsciousness. Why would she be worth saving to him? What value does she have?

 

Worse yet than the thoughts of abandonment are the whispers of death, _He’s dead. He can’t come for you because he’s dead_. Somehow it’s worse than him leaving her, imagining him lying prostrate across the cold tiled floor, stiff and mauled to bits by creatures satiating their appetites with his flesh. It doesn’t make her head hurt like his fleeing had, it rends her chest in two. She bites down hard on her lip, until she tastes blood, and presses her forehead into her knees. 

 

What is happening to her? Why does she care?

 

She sits like that for a long time; minutes, hours, it doesn't particularly matter when someone is in acute emotional and physical pain. Her heart and foot both throb as she breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth, desperate to regain control of her thoughts. 

 

One of the zombies below howls, and without giving it more than a seconds thought Rey tugs a tire from the stack beside her and heaves it down at them.

 

“Shut the fuck up!” She screeches at them, “Shut up!” 

 

Then she remembers the gun at her side, pressing uncomfortably into her hip. She tugs it out, the gunmetal tearing at her skin, she cocks it and starts to fire down onto them with little care for the consequences. She misses more than she hits, even though she’s only fifteen feet in the air, she can’t keep her arm level, and she doesn’t have the mental fortitude to bother with the sight. She empties the first magazine of seventeen rounds and ejects it, forcing the second in--notch facing forward--and begins to unload into the them again. She’s so enraged, so lost in her own world of vengeance that sound of shattering glass barely registers in her mind. 

 

The squeal of tires combines with the repeated banging of Rey’s bulletstorm, creating a symphony of sound that sends the zombies reeling. It’s too much, sensory overload. As they stumble in confusion Rey manages to pick off two more before she empties the second mag. She has just ejected it when _headlights_ nearly blind her and someone begins wailing on the horn of a car. 

 

Kylo has come back for her by driving his truck through the middle of a fucking department store. 

 

He’s parked in the aisle closest to her, and he slams on the horn several more times before climbing out of the open drivers side window and onto the roof. The creatures are swarming around the truck, clawing and howling as they reach for him, one of them jumps onto the hood in its frenzy, but Kylo fires off two quick shots in succession and its head explodes in flurry of blood and gore. 

 

Rey can see that the gun Kylo has slung over his chest isn’t a familiar one; this one is an assault rifle. He cocks it, and unleashes hell onto the horde that has surrounded him. She supposes that one doesn’t need accuracy when they’re firing at a rate of sixty rounds a minute. They’re dropping like flies under the hail of bullets, but there are still so many of them. They seem to be materializing from the darkness itself, appearing on all sides, attracted to the steady pounding of machine gun fire. 

 

Rey regains her wits and begins to shoot at the back of the horde, picking off the stragglers. She’s more careful now, leveling every shot by looking down the sight. _One, two, three, four, miss, six, seven, miss, eight , nine, ten, eleven, twelve, miss, miss, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,_ the gun clicks when she attempts to fire again, empty. She has used all of her magazines, she’s a sitting duck while Kylo empties clip after clip into the waves of undead. Only they aren’t waves now so much as ripples. Most of them lay curled in on themselves across the floor, bleeding, dead or dying. Kylo is picking off the remainder of them with practiced ease, aiming for the heads now that he has been afforded the opportunity to, rather than firing blindly into a wall of them.

 

Rey begins to descend the shelves as Kylo finishes up, careful only to grab onto the sturdy metal and not the many tires she had dislodged on her way up. Each movement is carefully calculated, but her ankle throbs each time she moves it. It hurts worse than when she first injured it. It’s slow going, working her way down, getting to the top had been so easy when her pain was masked by adrenaline and fear. Now she just wants to get to Kylo, but she _can’t_. It hurts too much, she has to stop for a moment and breathe through her nose.

 

“Rey?” The gunfire has stopped and Kylo has come to stand in front of the shelves, he sounds frightened, terrified, “Rey, are you okay?” His voice quavers.

 

She thinks he might be shaking a bit, “No. My ankle, I can’t put much weight on it, I can’t get down.” 

 

He slings his rifle over his shoulder and holds out his arms, “Remember what we did yesterday at the gas station? All I need you to do is jump, I can get you to the truck from there.” 

 

Rey nods and makes sure that her gun and bat are secure at her sides. Then she braces herself for the inevitable pain of using her ankle and pushes off the shelf carefully. Unlike last time she has no intention of throwing him off balance, of hurting him. He catches her in his strong arms, then carefully lowers her to the floor while still supporting some of her weight. He pushes her back for a moment, holding onto her shoulders, looking her over with wide panicked eyes. She does the same to him, relieved beyond belief that he is alive and unharmed. 

 

He opens his mouth--

 

A creature plows into his side, materializing from nowhere and screeching as it takes him down. He shouts and Rey screams, he’s barely holding it back as it snaps at him, pinning him to the floor beneath it’s writhing gray body. He has worked his weapon around to the front of him, pressing it hard to the things chest, keeping it mere inches away from the tender flesh of his throat, its yellow black teeth gnashing at him.

 

Rey yells and tugs her bat from her side, the nail scratches her thigh but she doesn’t notice as she rushes forward--her ankle burning all the way--and slams the six inch nail into the side of the thing’s skull, it becomes lodged, and the beast howls as it reels sideways, as far as the nail will allow. Kylo rolls out from under it and Rey takes that as her cue to slam her foot into the side of it’s foul matted head, shoving it off of her bat before she slams the heel of her boot into its temple over and over again, it writhes and whimpers as she paints the tile with its brains on her boot. Eventually it stops moving, only its fingers twitching as she brutalizes its corpse. 

 

Kylo has to pull her away from the body, crushing her to his chest and cooing at her like she’s a child in distress, “Shh, Rey stop, it’s dead, _it’s dead_.” 

 

She slumps into him, breathing hard, wide eyed and unsure exactly what it is that she’s feeling. He helps her to the truck, wordless, neither of them know what to say. He opens her door and lifts her in, laying her gently on the seat. 

 

He looks her over once again, then asks softly, “Where’s your clothes bag?”

 

She indicates towards the shelves, unable to find her voice. He closes her door as carefully as he can and goes to retrieve the purse. 

 

Rey closes her eyes and lets her head fall back onto the rest. She had thought that she was dead, that he was dead, that there wasn’t any hope left for her. But he came back. Kylo has saved her, _again_. 

 

 _She thought he was dead_. She shivers and curls her knees up into her chest, her ankle throbs at the movement. She wraps her arms around her legs and fights back a sob. This is all too much. 

 

Kylo returns with both her purse and her bat. She hadn’t realized that she dropped it. She gives him a look of acknowledgement and then closes her eyes again. She needs to digest all that has happened, these new feelings she has discovered and revelations she has made. He puts both objects on the floor at her feet and climbs into the cab. He’s shaken too, she can tell. His pallid skin and the tremor of his hands give him away. 

 

He drives backwards all the way out of the store. The damage he had done to the front doors is impressive, the floor around the entrance is covered in jagged shards of glass, and the metal framework has been bent to hell, sparking where the truck had ripped the doors off of their tracks. 

 

Kylo parks toward the back of the parking lot, in the open, where they can see for hundreds of yards in all directions, “Stay here, I just need to check for any real damage.” He says, quietly. 

 

It’s only once he’s gone around to the front of the truck and begins to untie them, that Rey realizes he had tethered two shopping carts to the front of the vehicle to serve as a makeshift ram for the doors. He tosses the bent wire carts away and lifts the hood. She gulps, hating that she can’t see him, that even for a moment she can’t be _sure_ that he’s safe. 

 

She opens her door and slides out, wincing at her ankle, just as Kylo slams the hood shut again. 

 

“Rey?” He walks towards her and she reaches out for him compulsively. Needing to touch him, feel him, _know that he’s alive_. 

 

He freezes, his arms stiff at his sides as she buries her face into his chest. She can hear his heart beating, hear his breath in his lungs, he’s warm, alive. Then he takes action, crowding her back into the side of the truck, careful of her ankle but still assertive. Her back connects lightly with the aluminum body and he lifts her chin so that she’s looking into his dark eyes. They’re filled with fear and pain. She imagines that her own eyes mirror those sentiments.

 

“Rey.” He says again, and he sounds _broken_. He lets the pad of his thumb run over her lower lip, and he tilts her head further back. Then he leans down and kisses her, gently at first, then harder, more desperate. She doesn’t kiss him back. She doesn’t know how to feel yet, doesn’t understand this warmth in her chest, and the overwhelming grief she had felt when she thought he had died. But she lets him kiss her, because he’s just as desperate for companionship as she is, wanting just as much for human touch and affection. His lips are a bit chapped, and he crushes her to him, lifting her onto the tips of her toes. 

 

Kylo breaks away then, breathing hard, his face flushed and eyes wild. He lets his thumbs come up to brush over her cheekbones. “I--”

 

He cuts himself off, and Rey can tell that he doesn’t know what to say, that he doesn’t know if what he just did was too much, or unwanted. 

 

She lets her hand come up to catch his wrist before he can pull his right hand away from her face, “It’s okay.” She breathes. And they stand there for a moment, taking each other in. Each wondering just what the other is thinking, feeling. Eventually she lets go of his wrist, and he drops his hand. 

 

“We need to go.” He sounds sad, lost, forlorn, and a multitude of other unpleasant things, “Find a safe place to treat our wounds and rest for the night.”

 

She just nods and gets back into the truck, mindful of her injured ankle, and they drive away. 

 

It’s hours before she realizes that Matthew’s name tag is no longer in her pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading everyone! We finally got a kiss! :D
> 
> P.S. This was a twenty page 5,000+ word chapter, sorry. 
> 
> P.P.S I'm going back and editing the old chapters this week, just grammatical fixes and sentence structure.


	7. Bathed

Rey lost the nametag. Something that just two days previous she had dug through a trashcan to retrieve, and she can’t even find the will within herself to care. Matthew is dead, both the human and the zombie. What’s the point in remembering a corpse? 

 

They drive until dawn, searching for a place Kylo deems safe enough to shelter in. Rey figures that wherever they stop they’ll stay for several days. Her ankle is angry and swollen, mottled with fresh blue-black bruises that mix with the yellow of those she had acquired at the time of her initial injury. She’s also still in Kylo’s clothes, they haven’t taken the time to stop since the Walmart fiasco, and now her skin is paying for it. The chaffing is much worse than before, and the tear down the back of the shirt has left her injuries to be rubbed raw by the upholstery. 

 

They’re well into Mississippi when they finally spot a place Kylo finds suitable. It’s a small white house, located far away from any main roads. It sits in a clearing in an otherwise heavily forested area. 

 

Kylo pulls into the gravel drive, his thumbs tapping impatiently on the steering wheel. “No one’s out,” he comments, “Place like this would be perfect to ride out the apocalypse in. Stay on guard, we might not be welcome here.”

 

“Are you sure about this?” She asks as he parks about twenty feet back from the attached garage, “We’re not really in the shape for a fight at the moment. Not sure if you’ve noticed?” She lifts her injured ankle onto the seat and rolls up the leg of his jeans to show him the bruising. 

 

He nods, serious but confident, “We don’t have another option,” The he leans a little closer, just close enough that she can feel his breath ghost her face, “I’ll keep you safe.” 

 

Suddenly she’s back in the Walmart parking lot and he’s crushing her to his body, his lips pressed firmly to her own. Rey looks away, flushed and embarrassed. She hasn’t really thought about the kiss since it happened, she’d pushed it to the back of her mind to process later. And it will have to wait for later still, Kylo is exiting the cab of the truck--shotgun in hand--ready for a fight.

 

First they search the perimeter of the residence. Together of course, they’ve learned their lesson about the dangers of splitting up, at least Rey hopes that they have. They find nothing of consequence or interest save for a leaking faucet around the back. The house still has water.

 

“Let’s hope it’s empty,” Rey comments, “Then we can shower.”

 

“ _We?_ ” Kylo jeers, smiling at her with his usual level of arrogance.

 

Rey ignores him.

 

They make their way back to the front of the house. Rey notes that the lower pane of one window is shattered and one of its dark red shutters has come loose and is hanging by a single corner.

 

“Kylo, look.” She points to where the glass is scattered across the landscaped area beneath the window. 

 

He approaches cautiously while Rey stays back, partially because her ankle is killing her and she doesn’t want to move it more than necessary, and partially because she has had her fill of the undead for the next week at least. 

 

He kneels next to the window, examining something in the dirt, “It looks like there was a struggle, someone might have been pulled through.” 

 

“We had best be careful then.” Rey says, turning her attention to the unassuming front door. It’s painted maroon to match the shutters, and it has a single decorative, frosted glass window that runs down a third of it. 

 

Kylo goes first, walking up the cement steps and knocking firmly on the door twice. When there’s no answer he tries the handle and it opens with no resistance. Unlocked. A chill shoots down Rey’s spine. Why would it be unlocked? 

 

Kylo holds up a hand, signaling her to stay behind him while he slowly edges over the threshold. He turns from left to right with his shotgun readied twice before he finally waves her in. “I think we’re alone,” he whispers, “But we should sweep the place anyways. Stay with me.”

 

They search the ground floor first. Nothing much catches Rey’s eye besides the broken window in the living room, and the muddy footprints leading away from it. But they taper off quickly, no telling where the victim, or attacker, went. Rey pulls her gun from her waistband, then remembers that she had used up all three mags in Walmart, and had forgotten to tell Kylo. She curses herself, coming into a place like this unarmed is a death wish. 

 

When they enter the kitchen they both take pause at what they find, a half eaten meal rotting on the counter. Four chairs, one of them a highchair, are set askew around the table, one is lying on it’s side. Rey can’t tell what the meal was supposed to be, some sort of roast in an aluminum cooking pan sits at the table's center, covered in flies. The plates are still clean save for the small plastic bowl in front of the highchair, also swarmed with insects. 

 

“That’s foul.” Rey says quietly, and Kylo nods in agreement.

 

“Something happened here.” He comments, then jerks his head in the direction of the foyer again, where a flight of stairs had been. No time for speculation.

 

They climb the stairs carefully, and when they reach the top Kylo pauses behind the banister, leveling his weapon and sweeping the area with hawk’s eyes. He must see nothing of interest because he waves Rey up past him. 

 

She slides by and steps onto the landing. There is a hallway that branches to the left and to the right. No pictures hang on the walls, no wallpaper, nothing but off-white paint, she doesn’t let the lack of sentimental objects bother her though, she goes left towards two doorways set across from one another. She chooses the one on the left and Kylo takes the one on the right. Rey’s is painted a soft baby blue, it stands out against the relative monotony of the rest of the house, and she fears what she suspects she’ll find inside. They stand back to back as they open them. 

 

Inside Rey finds a nursery, complete with a stork painting on the wall. Its feathers are tinted with blues and pinks and it carries a small white sack in its bill. The bird rises up over the dark wooden crib, which is filled with an abundance of stuffed toys and tiny blankets. Rey lifts up a small stuffed bear lets her thumb pass back and forth over its plush fur, she feels like she might vomit. _What happened here?_

 

“Rey?” Kylo calls from the doorway. 

 

She turns to him, bear still in hand, and she must look horrified because his face softens from keen awareness to kindness and understanding, “The other one is also a kid’s room, older though. A boy. Not much in there to see.” 

 

She looks over his shoulder to find that he has already shut the door. It likely won’t be opened again. She nods to him and steps out of the room, dropping the bear onto the floor before she shuts the door as well.

 

On the other end of the hallway they find a full bath and then the master bedroom. It’s sparse, just like the rest of the home. No pictures, no decorations save for the deep red curtains that obscure the windows. The queen sized bed is covered in a simple comforter, also maroon, with two pillows on either side. It’s unmade, like everything else in this house the bed is a snapshot in time. Kylo opens the closet door carefully, and Rey peeks past him as he makes his usual sweep with the shotgun. It’s a walk-in, half women’s clothing and half men’s. On the men’s side there hangs an abundance of neon vests--the sort construction workers wear--and heavy work pants. Beneath the hanging articles there are several pairs of muddy, heavy work boots lined neatly with their toes pressed to the wall. The woman’s side is more hectic, there’s little rhyme or reason to the organization, or lack thereof. Pants and shirts hang dispersed between one another, there are even some lying wrinkled on the floor. Where on the man’s side the shoes had been neatly arranged, the woman’s lay in a heap on the floor, heels and laces tangled into a mess of rubber and leather. Rey smirks at the juxtaposition of these two people, whoever they might have been. 

 

Kylo has already left the closet by the time Rey is done examining her surroundings. He’s moved on to the other side of the room, where there is a door that leads to the master bath. It’s large, with a jacuzzi tub and a counter covered in makeup. Rey swipes her finger across the marble and it comes away dusty. 

 

“I think we’re safe.” Kylo says, finally letting his body relax. He seems a bit shorter when he isn’t on guard, “You stay up here, rest, get off of your ankle. I’ll go downstairs and start unloading the truck. We’re going to stay here for a few days.” 

 

She limps over the the bed and collapses onto it, and it’s like she’s fallen onto clouds. She hasn’t slept in a bed in over a month, if she’s done the math correctly. She falls asleep before she has time to count the days. 

 

Rey doesn’t know how long she’s been asleep when she wakes to Kylo’s hand on her shoulder. “Rey,” he says softly, “Wake up, I need to look at your wounds.”

 

She rolls over and rubs at her eyes, groggy. The sun that comes through the slit in the curtains is a deep orange, and casts long shadows across the room. The window is facing west. It’ll be dusk soon. She rises up and goes to the edge of the bed, where Kylo motions for her to sit. 

 

She can see that he has brought her purse full of clothes, along with his large, fatigue duffel bag up into the room. They’re sitting neatly at the foot of the bed. 

 

Kylo pulls up the torn back of her borrowed shirt, and she doesn’t complain, though her face flushes as she can _feel_ him scrutinizing her bare skin. “It’s not deep, but it’s dirty. There’s running water here, take a bath, clean yourself up. I’ll look at your foot and figure out if it needs rewrapped afterwards. As for your ankle,” they both glance down at it, black and blue and swollen, “I’ll make a splint for it. I’m not a doctor, but I don’t want to risk you injuring it further in the case that it is broken.” 

 

“Alright,” Rey turns to thank him and notices that his hair is wet, hanging damp around his face. And he smells… _musky_ , but in a good way. He must have already bathed. She flushes further at the thought of him bathing just feet away from her, even if he was behind a closed door. She foregoes the thanks, grabs some clothes from her bag, and scampers to the bathroom nervously. Wanting to get away from him, and his scent, and that way he looks at her, and his odd underlying _kindness_ which he masks so well beneath his steely facade. 

 

Rey decides to run a bath. The mirror is still steamed from when Kylo bathed, and she can see where he had traced patterns onto the glass with his finger. She smirks and tests the water as it rushes from the faucet, perfect. She carefully unwraps her foot, and finds it healing exceptionally well, despite all of the rigor of the previous day the scabs are still intact, and fresh pink skin is revealed where some of them have fallen away. She peels off the sweaty, too-big shirt and pants she had been wearing, and slips into the tub. Relaxing as the warm water slowly rises around her body. She takes note of the many soaps and shampoos that sit on the edge of the other end of the tub, she’ll make good use of those later. But for now she turns off the water, closes her eyes and floats.

 

Her mind wanders through the last ten days, the insanity of it all, the speed at which her life has changed irreversibly. She wonders if this is all just a bad dream, a nightmare induced by one too many drinks, but she knows it’s not. She’s still alone. _Only not at all_. 

 

She shakes the thoughts from her head and reaches for one of the bottles of shampoo. She lathers and rinses her hair, then moves on to the rest of her body. She takes the bar of soap from its tray and begins to scrub at her skin eagerly. When she gets to her back she is more careful, using a washcloth to blot the cuts clean. It stings, but she has experienced worse in the past, her foot for example. She looks down at it again and groans at the sight of the bruising across her ankle, Kylo’s right, it could be broken. What would that mean for her? How long do broken bones take to heal? She doesn’t have the slightest idea. 

 

Rey sits there for a while after she’s finished cleaning, letting her body prune in the warm water. She’s not alone anymore, and that’s something she needs to...address. Especially considering how it seems her companion has developed feelings for her. _The kiss_. The kiss is an issue, it changes things, whether she likes it or not. She can’t ignore it any longer, the way he held her, pressed her up against the side of the truck, the feeling of his lips--slightly chapped-- against her own. The warmth pooling between her thighs at the memory perturbs her. 

 

She’s not in love with him. Whatever his feelings towards her might constitute she doesn’t return them. But she wants him, sexually. She _craves_ human touch, contact with another who is just as alive as she is. At least she thinks that’s what she wants, she has never had the pleasure of being with another person in such an intimate way before. In the past she had wanted it to be special, meaningful, and act performed with someone she loved. Now she just wants to be touched. She thinks he might just be the balm she needs to alleviate the sting of these last two weeks, and the weeks of endless walking before that. 

 

She lets her hand slip down between her thighs, tentatively feeling herself. She’s damp on her own, apart from the water she’s currently submerged in, and she’s hot too. Very, very hot. She bites her lip--and then she remembers that she’s laying in a tub filled with weeks worth of grime and dirt. _She can’t_ , not in here, she’d risk infection. And she can’t do it out there either, in the bedroom, where Kylo is...doing whatever it is that Kylo does. Probably writing in that damned journal of his now that he has a moment to himself. 

 

Rey groans in pure frustration and rises slowly out of the water, taking care not to bump her foot on the edge of the tub. She grabs a towel, unsurprisingly maroon, off of the rack and towels her hair dry. She rubs it over her damp limbs until she’s decently dry and then hangs it back up. She sighs as she dresses herself in clean, fitting clothes, a plain gray t-shirt and a pair of simple black leggings, and one of the pairs of panties she stole, black cotton. She hates going commando. 

 

When Rey steps back out into the bedroom she’s surprised to find it empty, Kylo is nowhere to be seen. But he has left his dirty clothes strewn across the floor like some sort of savage. Rey scoffs and picks them up, his shirt, his socks, his _underwear_ , his cargo pants--and something falls out of the pocket, a conspicuous blue package. It thumps onto the floor and Rey sets Kylo’s clothing on the edge of the bed, then leans down to pick it up. 

 

Condoms. 

 

Kylo had condoms in his pocket. So that’s what he had nabbed at the convenience store, what he hadn’t wanted her to see. 

 

Rey stands there for a long time, box of condoms in hand, unsure of how she should feel about this. He’s been planning to sleep with her, that much has been made clear. It’s his motivations that remain unknown to her, and this one simple, stupid little box raises a thousand questions. She kisses her teeth and drops the box on top of his dirty clothing at the foot of the bed, and sits down beside it. She could be angry, livid, scream and yell until she’s blue in the face and then some. She really _should_ be. He could very easily just be keeping her around for sex, that could be all he had planned for her. Fuck her then run. But somehow she doubts that. One doesn’t go charging into a zombie filled superstore to save a _potential_ sexual conquest. 

 

Maybe, and this is her best case scenario, he just wants them to be amicable fuck buddies. Considering what she had nearly done in the bath just moments before, she’s certainly not opposed to that idea. Allies who sleep together on occasion to alleviate the unbearable loneliness of being lost in a world overrun by death. That’s what she needs right now, she decides. She needs human contact, she needs intimacy, craves it, desires it more than she ever has anything else. Because she’s lonely and scared and _driven mad with guilt_ , she needs a salve to soothe her aches and a distraction to keep her from getting lost in her own terrible thoughts. 

 

But then there's the most likely explanation for the condoms, for his actions at the department store, for the kiss. He has feelings for her. She is unsure of exactly what ilk, but he has _feelings_. She really doesn’t know why, they aren’t exactly friends, they’ve been together for ten days and he’s been an insufferable, borderline-creepy ass through all of them. It’s not her place to question though, not if she wants to go through with this, not if she wants him to have sex with her, to make her feel something besides guilt and pain. 

 

Rey picks up the box of condoms and goes to look for Kylo. 

 

She finds him standing in the kitchen, next to a door that must lead into the garage. 

 

“Garage,” he confirms, facing away from her, “We missed it on our initial sweep.” He sounds harrowed, his voice low and distraught.

 

“Find anything interesting?” She asks, taking a step toward him, the condoms almost forgotten in her concern. _Almost_.

 

“No.” He pivots, and suddenly he’s back to normal; strong willed, a bit cocky, determined, Kylo. Then he goes white as a sheet, as she lifts the box of condoms up in front of her chest. She cocks her head to the side, questioning him with her eyes. He doesn’t realize that she’s teasing. “I--I um…”

 

He’s holding his hands up, his pupils are shot wide, and she swears she can see a nervous sweat beading on his skin. She laughs aloud, genuine, she’s never seen him flustered before, and it’s _brilliant_.

 

“W-what?” He drops his hands to his sides and his brow furrows, “Why are you laughing?”

 

Rey wipes her eyes with the back of one hand and chuckles, “You should’ve seen the look on your face, perfect, wish I had a camera.” 

 

“You’re not angry?” He queries gently, like he’s afraid just saying the word ‘condom’ will awaken some latent anger within her. 

 

She shakes her head and sighs, shrugging her shoulders, “No, I’m not angry. I’ve thought about what happened yesterday, about how you kissed me, and I want to have sex with you.” It sounds far too matter-of-fact, clinical even, and she hopes it gets her intentions across clearly. She wants sex, not love.

 

It does. His eyes darken and he steps closer to her, close enough that she has to tilt her head back to look at him. He’s smirking, “Alright.”

 

_Alright? No questions? No comments?_

 

Why she suddenly wants him to call her motivations into question is a mystery even to her, but she suppresses her own apprehension and stands up on her tip toes. She wraps her arms around the back of his neck and tugs him down into a kiss, it’s sloppy and a bit dispassionate, but his lips are warm and he grabs her hips in a way that makes the heat rush back between her legs. 

 

He breaks the kiss and hoists her up into his arms, carrying her through the kitchen and up the stairs. He’s strong, she can feel his muscles coiling and relaxing beneath his thin shirt. She’s only ever glanced him without a shirt on, _she can’t wait to see more_. She licks her lips and sucks pretty bruise into his neck as they ascend the stairs. His skin tastes slightly of soap. 

 

When they reach the bedroom he kicks the door shut behind them and drops her onto the bed, she lays the condoms beside her and wraps her arms around his shoulders as he climbs over her. He looms there for a moment, above her, looking down at her with desire burning hot and dark behind his eyes. He brings one hand up and lets his fingers ghost over her lips, then he descends on her and catches her lips in a hungry kiss. This time it’s much more tactful, more satisfying with him leading her, showing her just how badly he wants her. 

 

She can feel his erection pressing against her thigh through his pants and her own arousal spikes tenfold. She breaks the kiss and paws at his shirt, whining in the back of her throat, begging him with her eyes to _please take it off_. He grins and sits up, his legs caging her waist as he tugs his shirt over his head in one fluid movement, sending it flying across the room. He leans over her again, curving his torso slightly so his abdominal muscles ripple over her. 

 

Rey bites her lip and smooths a hand down his stomach, then back up and over his tattoo before she kisses him again, or at least she tries to. Kylo pulls away just as her lips brush his, feather light, and he reaches for the hem of her t-shirt. She gasps as he lifts her off the bed a bit and pulls the garment over her head. He growls low in the back of his throat when he finds that she isn’t wearing a bra. He leans down and kisses her throat, her collarbone, across the tops of her breasts; feather light but maddening for Rey as she whimpers for him to _touch her_. 

 

And he does. Kylo grabs her narrow waist with one hand, lifting her slightly from the bed, then plants his other beside them on the mattress. He runs his tongue over her left breast around her nipple an up to her throat where he nips at her jaw before he moves down again, taking her nipple into his mouth and giving it a hard _suck_ , before releasing it and moving to the other. He pays equal attention to her right breast, leaving her a moaning begging mess beneath him at the heat of his breath on her skin and the anticipation that, as it mounts, heightens the warmth that has spread over her body, the burning dampness in her panties, it’s all too much.

 

“Please!” She cries out as he plants kisses down between her breasts and past her navel, all the way to her waistband. 

 

Kylo lifts her hips off of the bed and slowly works her leggings off of her body, pressing kisses along her thigh as he goes. Then he hooks his thumbs into the top of her underwear and pushes those off too. She nearly sobs at the odd sensation of cool air on her burning sex as he parts her lower lips with two of his fingers. She can’t even find it within herself to be embarrassed over having not shaved in a month, it’s too new, too good, the feel of his fingers between her thighs, his breath over her cunt.

 

“You’re beautiful,” he moans as he kisses and nips his way up the inside of her thigh, “Perfect.” And then he puts his lips on her, sucking her clit into his mouth and she howls at the feel of it, his tongue working her in quick precise circles. It’s all too new, too good, and she falls apart before he can even begin to work his tongue into her. 

 

She’s practically sobbing as she begins to come down, the mind numbing sensation of orgasm is too perfect, just what she needed, just what she needs again. She wants to know what it feels like to fall apart when he’s inside her so deep she can’t tell where he ends and she begins. Kylo’s already on the same page, fumbling his pants off clumsily and then tearing open the box of condoms. He grabs one packet and tears it open with his teeth while he pushes his underwear down his thighs and kicks it across the room. 

 

Rey bites her lip at the sight of him, he looks big, though she doesn’t have much to compare him too. She’s never seen a penis in person before, hard or soft, and his looks so imposing, large and curved upwards towards his belly.

 

He breathes hard through his nose as he watches her take him in, admire him. Then he grunts and rolls the condom on. “Are you ready, Rey?” He asks, huskily, already lining himself up with her entrance, rubbing the head of himself across her slit over and over again, painting himself with her wetness. 

 

She bites her lip, nods, and Kylo pushes home. She gasps as he stretches her, he feels just as big as he looked, and she masks the sting she feels by biting her lip and forcing a moan. He grunts and starts to thrust. Slowly and then quicker, building a steady pace as he rocks in and out of her tight body. He’s not particularly gentle, his fingers gripping her hips with bruising force, but she likes it. Some deep, depraved part of her loves how he’s handling her so roughly, and suddenly his intrusion doesn’t hurt like it had. The sting of the initial stretch begins to fade and a new deliciously warm sensation tingles up her spine from her dampening sex. He begins to press deeper as she relaxes, his cock reaching further into her and brushing against something that leaves her panting and rocking her hips up into his, taking every thrust he gives. 

 

She looks down between their bodies and sobs as she watches him stretch her on each thrust, watches the thick shaft of him appear and then disappear again and again, each movement accompanied by a disgustingly lewd ‘smack’ as his sac slaps her rear.

 

When he reaches between her thighs with one hand and starts to rub her sensitive clit with two large fingers she falls apart on his cock. Clenching hard around him as he begins to lose his rhythm. He’s thrusting like mad now, unable to hold back as he too reaches his peak. He throws his head back and howls as he empties himself into the condom, Rey still clenched tightly around him, coming down from her own climax. 

 

Kylo rolls off of Rey and onto his side, facing away from her breathing hard. They lay like that for a few minutes, Rey staring at the ceiling, mind blissfully clear for the first time in a month. Kylo staring at a wall, his emotions a mystery to her as he doesn’t speak or move beyond breathing. When he finally stirs and sits up in a position where she can see his profile, Rey glances over at him in time to watch his brow furrow as he goes to remove the condom. 

 

 _Oh no_.

 

“You were a virgin.” It’s not a question but an accusation, he lifts the used condom up and Rey pales at the sight of her blood around the base of it. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were a virgin?” Then he says more quickly, slightly panicked, “How old are you?”

 

Rey looks away and attempts to count the days on her fingers, but she comes up short. “What’s the date?”

 

He stands up, lips pursed, and crosses the room to the wastebasket where he drops the condom haphazardly inside, “September twelfth.” 

 

Rey doesn’t look at him, he’s angry, she can tell. And he has every right to be, she should have told him the truth, “I turned twenty two weeks ago, apparently.” 

 

That seems to calm him a bit as he sits on the edge of the bed, he’s less tense now. He looks back at her and she can tell he wants to say something patronizing, but he refrains. Instead he brings his legs up onto the bed and lays out beside her. There’s about a foot of space between their naked bodies, and Rey decides that she wants it to stay that way. She rolls over to face away from him and mumbles softly under her breath, “Goodnight.”

 

That night her sleep is restful and dreamless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, they finally sleep together, though not in the context we all would've liked. ;)
> 
> Just a few notes so I don't get chewed out in the comments;  
> 1) I know that the first time a woman has sex it doesn't have to hurt, but Kylo was unaware that she was a virgin so he didn't take the proper steps to prepare.  
> 2) Communication is key with sex, obviously. If you're a virgin you owe your partner the courtesy of informing them first. 
> 
> On a less serious note; I promised a few sarcastic/jokey lines in regard to the condoms, those will come later, I promise. ;)
> 
> And finally; I deleted my Tumblr, mostly because I hate antis and have decided to remove myself from their domain entirely. But don't worry! I will remain active here :D


	8. Graves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for descriptions of dead bodies in this chapter, a bit more morose than usual.

Rey wakes before Kylo the next morning, a trend between the two of them it seems. Her eyes flutter open as a shaft of sunlight is cast over her face through the center part of the maroon curtains. She’s very warm, too warm, and there’s something hard pressing against her ass. Kylo has gravitated toward her in his sleep, apparently. And now she’s wrapped in his arms, back pulled flush to his chest, and they’re both completely naked. Waking up in such an intimate position doesn’t embarrass her like it might’ve just the day before--they’ve slept together, he’s been inside of her, there’s nothing left to be embarrassed about--but it does irritate her. Not only because this is precisely the thing she _didn’t_ want, but because of the odd warmth that passes over her, the way her heart stutters and her breath catches before she rationalizes that this is an accident, that she _doesn’t_ like this. 

 

She manages to wiggle free from his embrace without waking him, though he does stir a bit; rolling onto his back and throwing his forearm over his eyes. She averts her eyes from his obvious erection. _Do all men get hard in their sleep?_

 

As Rey gathers her clothing from where it had been thrown the night before she has to walk with care, the apex of her thighs is a bit sore. She bites her lip remembering how good it had been, and also remembering his lukewarm response afterward. She understands why he’s upset with her about the whole ‘lying by omission about being a virgin’ thing. She really does. But she can’t bring herself to sympathize when she feels so well rested and so… _content_. She’s not troubled like she had been for days beforehand, and she knows that the high will wear off eventually but Kylo is right here with her, and hopefully he’ll come around to the idea of sleeping with her on a regular basis. He had seemed to enjoy himself well enough. 

 

As she bends over to pick up her panties from the floor next to Kylo’s side of the bed, he snores and she glances up at him, her eyes passing over the nightstand and then immediately flicking back. _The journal_. It’s simple and unassuming, a composition notebook like any student might carry, but Kylo obviously isn’t a student. He must’ve pulled it out after she fell asleep the night before. 

 

She grinds her teeth nervously and stares at it for a moment. That’s where all of the answers she wants are written. She can imagine them, scrawled messily across the pages, explanations for all of his odd behavior and his bad attitude. 

 

Rey lifts her hand slowly towards it, like he might wake at the slightest movement. She’s shaking a bit, so caught up in her own anxiety and anticipation that she yelps when a large callused hand flies out and grabs her wrist. _Tight_.

 

She gasps and is met with dark accusing eyes, “What, exactly, do you think you’re doing, Rey?” 

 

She yanks her arm away and rubs her wrist, pouting at him. He doesn’t know that she was aware of the journal’s existence before this moment, so she lies to save her own skin, “I was just curious, no need to be such an ass.” Well, not really a lie, a half truth. 

 

He huffs and sits up in bed, stretching his shoulders and cracking his back, “Curiosity killed the cat.” He chuckles at her. 

 

The corner of her mouth quirks downward and she snipes back, irritated, “But satisfaction brought it back.” If only he knew the level of truth behind the second half of the saying, how desperately she wants to understand what is written on the pages of that damned journal. 

 

He catches her wrist, more gentle this time, and stops her from walking away, “Clever girl.” He murmurs and tugs her back onto the bed with him. 

 

Rey squeaks as he pulls her roughly to his chest and starts to kiss her, light and playful on the lips. 

 

“Wanna go again?” He asks between kisses, lifting her up a bit so her pussy is positioned deliciously close to his erect cock where is lays across his belly. 

 

“You seemed pretty peeved last night,” She hesitates, unsure of how to react to this sudden onslaught of affection.

 

He kisses her throat, nipping the delicate skin there, “I’m over it.”

 

He’s lying. She can tell. Looking into his eyes she can see resentment behind the lust. “No.” She says, and she slides off of him and back onto the floor with as much grace as she can manage on an injured foot. She doesn’t feel like playing this game with him right now, not while she’s still riding the high from the night before. And besides, she’s still sore. 

 

Rey gathers her clothes again and leaves Kylo to deal with himself in the bedroom. She’s going to have another bath. Now that she has such an amenity back within her grasp she intends to use it. 

 

Once she has finished drawing the water and slipped her body into the white porcelain tub, she lets her hand slide down her torso, past her breasts, over her navel, and between her thighs. She understands sex, she’d had sexual education classes, she knows how it works, the basic jist of it. But it’s girlish curiosity that drives her to touch herself, feel if she’s somehow _different_ down there. She’s not, it feels the same as it has every time before, except a bit more tender from the previous night’s _ministrations_. 

 

Rey wonders if it was a mistake to sleep with Kylo, if it will just put more strain on their already tumultuous relationship. It's too late now, though. The act can't be undone. But she takes comfort in knowing that whatever it might be that he feels for her, it isn’t love. It can’t be. He’s broken, just as broken as she is, if not more. People like them aren’t capable of loving any longer, they’re damaged beyond repair. And suddenly she’s back on that God forsaken shelf, surrounded by heavy rubber tires with the jaws of the living dead snapping hungrily beneath her, and she’s feeling what is quite possibly the most heart wrenching sense of loss ever to split her ribs in two, deep and rending. She can’t breathe. 

 

_She can’t fucking breathe._

 

Rey must’ve made a noise, gasped for air or cried out because suddenly Kylo is clambering through the door, panicked and wide eyed. She can see his lips are moving, but she can’t make out the words over the deafening ringing in her ears. One of her hands clenches on the wet rim of the tub and she tries to move, to pull herself into an upright position, but she can’t, she’s petrified. 

 

Kylo leans over the tub and lifts her out with one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees, whispering soft, useless comforts into her dripping hair. He carries her into the bedroom, letting his fingers smooth over her damp skin. He deposits her onto the bed, and sits beside her pulling a thin sheet over her shaking form.

 

“Rey,” he says gently, laying a hand on her bicep and leaning over her slightly, but not enough to make her feel claustrophobic, “Rey, please, you’re having a panic attack.”

 

 _She fucking knows that she’s having a panic attack_. She doesn’t need him to tell her. Her fists clench so tightly at her sides that she can feel her nails biting through the skin of her palms. 

 

 _Don’t leave me_. 

 

She must’ve said the words aloud because he’s taking her stiff hands into his own and looking into her eyes with such _emotion_ written across his face, “I won’t.” And he says it with such assurance, such conviction that she bursts into tears. 

 

He lays down beside her, pulling her naked body to his clothed chest and presses kisses over her face, her throat, between her breasts and to the apex of her thighs. And between her sobs she can only be grateful, because he knows exactly what it is that she needs. 

 

He knows how to make her forget. 

 

Rey wakes two hours later, it’s still morning, but the bright light of afternoon is beginning to overtake the softness of dawn. She sits up slowly, still naked, and rubs her eyes with the back of her hand. They’re still a bit puffy from crying. 

 

She feels numb again, blissfully numb. She lets her feet hit the carpeted floor and goes to the bathroom, hardly noticing the soreness between her thighs anymore. Sitting on the toilet lid are her clothes, neatly folded. She dresses without giving it much thought. She wishes that he had fucked her again, rather than just tasting her then slipping away, leaving her weak limbed and exhausted on the duvet. 

 

Rey runs a brush through her hair--the previous homeowner's, not her own--then she goes downstairs, quiet and running on instinct rather than executive function. She’s hungry. She wants food. Kylo is downstairs, so food must be downstairs. It’s a simple, precise thought process, and it’s not entirely wrong either. Kylo _isn’t_ downstairs, which means she doesn’t know where he is. But there is a package of saltine crackers set out for her on one of the kitchen counters. 

 

She brushes past it, feeling the same panic from earlier in the morning bubbling back up in her chest, souring her mouth with bile as she rushes through the kitchen and towards the door that leads into the garage, because where else could he possibly be.

 

Kylo is there, thank God. And Rey has to put all of her weight into the doorframe to keep from collapsing onto her knees with the sheer relief of his presence. She closes her eyes and breathes hard, in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying desperately to calm her racing heart. 

 

“Rey?” He’s halfway out the open garage door, dragging a tarp behind him, tied tight with twine around a large bundle. He has a rag tied over his nose and mouth, and his shotgun slung over his left shoulder. 

 

Her mouth falls open and suddenly she overwhelmed by the stench of the garage. She gasps and stumbles forward, out and under the door into the fresh air before she hits her knees and wretches into the gravel of the driveway. 

 

Rot. What she smells is rot. The same stench that had permeated that fucking Walmart. There are, or were, dead bodies in that garage. 

 

She stares down into a puddle of her own vomit, liquid, because she hasn’t eaten in God only knows how long, and watches as it soaks into the earth beneath the gravel stones. 

 

“Rey?” Kylo calls out from behind her.

 

She slowly pushes herself back up and onto her feet, brushing off the knees of her leggings and picking a few small rocks from her palms. She’s hyper aware of the throbbing in her ankle, which is still want for a splint. 

 

She sniffs, fighting hard against her gag reflex as the scent emanates from the open garage. “Kylo?” She asks quietly, already certain of what the answer will be, “What’s in the tarp?” She looks over her shoulder at him, but he won’t return the gesture, he keeps his eyes trained on anything but her, flicking them from the ground up to the treeline over her head. 

 

“...Kylo?” She presses harder, taking a step closer, making a point to breathe through her mouth rather than her nose. She has to know, she wants a confirmation for what she already knows is true. 

 

“Rey…” He sounds exasperated, like a frustrated parent, like he’s scared the truth might shatter her into a million unmendable pieces. 

 

But she already knows the truth, and there’s only one thing that could break her now. She just isn’t quite ready to admit it to herself. 

 

“How many bodies?” She asks quiet, a little afraid, but desperate for information. 

 

He gulps and lets the end of the tarp he had been holding drop to the dirt. “Four.” 

 

“What are you doing with them?” 

 

He nods his head towards the back of the house, “I dug some shallow graves out back.” 

 

Rey quirks an eyebrow at him and does an about face, finally looking at him directly. But she won’t go any closer on account of the smell, “I thought you didn’t take the time to mourn the dead. Sick animals is what you called them.” 

 

The corners of his mouth quirk downwards, and the sadness that saturates his eyes, his features, sends a chill down Rey’s spine as she realizes. 

 

 _Oh, oh no_.

 

“They weren’t…” she trails off, unable to complete her own thought. The truth is far worse than she could have possibly imagined. “Let me see.”

 

“Rey--”

 

“Let me see them!” She demands. She needs this, she needs to know who they were. 

 

He kneels beside the tarp and unties it slowly, hesitating several times, giving her the chance to change her mind and object, but she doesn’t. She waits stone faced until he’s finished loosening the knots, and peeled back the blue material to reveal the bodies. 

 

They’re foul, rotting, buzzing with flies even beneath the tarp. One of them, the largest, is less putrid than the others. _Fresher_. It’s a male, with blue black skin and bulging veins. He looks emaciated. He was one of them, a zombie. He’s nothing but a corpse now. The others are harder to evaluate, much further along in their own putrefaction. Two of them are small, too small, both curled in on themselves. The smaller of the two looks like it doesn’t have a head. When she looks to the mother she quickly discovers why. The woman had blown her own child’s head clean off. The gun is still clutched tightly in a rotting clenched hand. 

 

“I think…” Kylo begins, “I think that he was pulled through the window while the rest were sitting down to eat,” he indicates towards the male with his hand, “He was bitten. After that it’s all unclear. Maybe they tried to nurse him back to health, maybe they were so far from society that they had no idea what was happening. But eventually the mother and the children fled from him into the garage. He got in anyways, so the mother did the only thing she could.” 

 

Rey gulps and nods. She understands. 

 

They walk side by side around to the back yard where Kylo has dug three holes about ten feet out from the cement patio. Only three. One for each dead human. 

 

“I don’t bury animals.” He comments snidely as he undoes the twine for the second time. He hands Rey his gun and tells her to watch his back while he takes care of things. She does as he asks. Stepping up onto the patio and letting her eyes scan back and forth across the treeline as Kylo works. 

 

“Did it…starve...to death?” She asks softly, eyeing the gaunt body of the man. 

 

Kylo just nods.

 

_So, they can starve._

 

He pulls a pair of gardening gloves from his back pocket and puts them on before he drags the woman’s corpse away from those of her children, and lowers it into the largest of the three holes. He covers it quickly, shoveling mud and grass onto the body and patting it down with his hands. Next comes the toddler. Rey thinks he was a boy from his haircut and clothing. Kylo takes more care with that one, laying him down gently. He doesn’t throw the earth over his corpse so much as lay it, and again he pats it down with his hands. 

 

Then comes the infant. Kylo hesitates for a long moment before he carefully lifts the tiny body in his hands. His steps are slow and weighted as he walks the few feet between the tarp and the too-small grave. Rey steps off of the patio, certain that in the few moments it will take her to help him a threat won’t appear. 

 

He presses the child softly to the dirt and they both begin to cover it with their hands. There is no point in using the shovel this time, it takes so little dirt to bury. They pat the earth down and then stand together. Solemn. Silent. They stare at eachother for a breath, _into_ eachother. Then they break, Rey moving towards a small tree on the other end of the patio, and Kylo lifting the end of the tarp up and dragging it towards the treeline, taking his shotgun with him. 

 

More likely than not he’s going to leave the father’s body for animals to fight over. She doesn’t really care.

 

She picks up sticks from under the tree, and then returns to the graves. There she uses the twine Kylo had bound the tarp in to create small makeshift crosses, and she sticks one at the head of each plot. She’s not religious. It’s not that she _doesn’t_ believe, but she’s never given it much thought. But this family lived in the heart of the Bible belt, it’s reasonable to assume that they might have held some faith. And besides, there should be something here to mark where they rest, at least until the next storm blows through. 

 

That night they eat a quiet meal of crackers and canned soup in the bedroom. And then Kylo puts a splint on her ankle, made of torn clothing from the walk-in closet, and small slats of wood he had found in the garage. 

 

“I want to get out of here.” Rey says as he finishes with her ankle. He’s kneeling in front of her while she sits on the bed, “Now that we know what happened here it’s like the house is full of ghosts. I feel like we’re... _imposing_ , or something.” 

 

Kylo shakes his head, frowning. “ _Or something_. They’re dead Rey, they can’t use anything here anymore. We, on the other hand, can. We gave them a proper burial, we’ve done all we could, if it’s restless spirits you’re worried about, that is. And you’re not in prime fighting condition at the moment. I want to give your ankle a few more days to heal up before we hit the road again.”

 

He’s right, she knows he’s right. But she doesn’t have to like it. The shadow cast over this house by the deeds done here is far too great for her exist in for long. It’s already stifling her, making it difficult to breathe, or think clearly. She falls back onto the bed, laying horizontally across the crimson sheets. 

 

Kylo stands up and leaves the room without a word. She doesn’t inquire after him, rather she listens to him walk down the stairs, slam around in the kitchen for a moment, then come back up the stairs at twice the pace he had originally descended them. 

 

Rey cranes her neck to look at him when he comes back over the threshold. In one hand he is holding a bottle of wine, unopened it seems. And in the other he is holding two glasses, not wine glasses, but glasses still. He closes the door, locks it, and then plops down onto the bed beside her, sitting with his legs crossed as he uncorks the bottle with his teeth. 

 

“Sit up,” he says, almost jovial, “Drink with me. Forget for a little while.” 

 

She sits and bites her lip. There’s only one thing that can really make her forget, but she supposes some cheap wine will do for now. She takes a glass and holds it up for him to fill. He does so with a smirk on his face, then fills his own. 

 

He raises his glass and offers a toast, “To not getting ourselves fucking killed yet.”

 

Rey chuckles as they tap their cups together, “Though we came close many times.” It’s very bitter and dry, and it burns harshly on the way down, but she drinks it anyways.

 

They drink. 

 

And they talk.

 

And they drink some more. 

 

And eventually, somehow, they’re kissing. Not the dispassionate, uncertain kissing like the night before, but _heady_ , needy kisses that leave Rey moaning as Kylo presses her back into the bedsheets. His knee is pressed between her thighs and he has both of her wrists caught in one large hand pinned above her head.

 

“Kylo...” She whimpers his name when they separate briefly for air, and then he presses his lips to hers again, lets his tongue slip into her mouth as his fingers fiddle with the button on his jeans. 

 

She’s so pleasantly buzzed, lost in a haze of lust and alcohol, that she doesn’t think as he carefully tugs her shirt over her head, kissing and nibbling his way across her collarbone and down to her breasts. She’s so needy and wanting and desperate for more that when he pulls his own shirt over his head and tosses it away, she actually becomes lost in the swirling patterns of that beautiful tattoo, spilling across his shoulder and onto his left pec. She kisses it, letting her tongue trace over the intricate lines and patterns and he moans when she leaves her marked trail to lick his nipple.

 

He carefully pushes her away from his chest so she can watch as he finishes disrobing them both. Her first, panties and leggings gone in one swift movement, his hand supporting the small of her back as he rolls the garment over her feet. Then his own, letting his cock--thick and beaded at the tip with precum--bounce against his thigh before he leans down to kiss her again as he lines himself up with her entrance. 

 

He lets the head pass gently over her slit three times, leaving her mewling against his full mouth, clutching at his rear, begging for him to push into her already. 

 

He finally does, pressing home gently with a wet sound that makes her moan as he seats himself deep inside of her. He’s so perfect, the way he fills her up, the way he covers her with his body, pressing his face into her shoulder as he begins to thrust.

 

This isn’t sex. This isn’t fucking. She doesn’t know what this is, the way their hips roll in tandem, maintaining a delicious rhythm. The way her body flushes and she pleads for more in a way that is so desperate, so wanting and needy. She wants more, far beyond the physical sense of the word. And she should be afraid, every logical fiber of her being shrieks at her to fear this feeling, to throw him off of her and run, but that logic is so minute and insignificant in comparison to the absolute ecstasy that is coursing through her veins.

 

He rocks into her, each movement of his hips she meets in equal enthusiasm with her own. Her hands cup his ass, her fingernails clawing at him as she urges him deeper, harder. She wants him so badly to stay like this forever with her, to never allow this feeling to stop. But she’s cresting, clenching around his member and crying out his name with desperate abandon as she tips over the edge into the blinding ecstasy of orgasm. And he buries himself to the hilt inside of her as he follows, spilling himself deep and chanting her name over and over, clutching her tightly to his body as he cums. 

 

It’s enough to bring tears to her eyes, the raw unbridled emotion of it all. 

 

Once he has pulled out he wraps her in his arms and hold her tight to his chest, her lips millimeters away from his tattoo. She kisses him there, over and over, unthinking, uncaring, as she tries to block out the words she hears him whispering into her hair. Words she isn’t ready to hear yet. Words she will forget tomorrow when she wakes a bit hungover and very sore. 

 

 _I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you_.

 

The box of condoms lays forgotten, half hidden under the bedskirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that was a bit of an emotional roller coaster, wasn't it? Rey is _very_ conflicted, if you couldn't tell, and Kylo is still hiding something. I promise I haven't forgotten his shady past, but it's essential for Rey to _uncover_ the full extent of her feelings for him first, trust me.
> 
> Also, just because she could be pregnant doesn't necessarily mean that she IS pregnant. Or is she? Wait and see. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! :D


	9. Dog Tag

Rey wakes the next morning with a mild headache, probably due to the bottle of wine they had polished off the previous night. She is alone in the bed, tangled up in the dark red sheets, and she can hear the water running in the bathroom. The door has been left ajar, an open invitation she assumes. She ignores it and goes about gathering their dirty clothes from the night before. She rolls out of the bed, and glances over to the nightstand on the other side; the journal is gone. When Kylo had found the time to move it, and to where, she hasn't the slightest clue. 

 

She shrugs her shoulders and picks up his pants off of the floor, then her shirt, then his underwear, her leggings and so on. The last article, thrown to the opposite side of the room from the rest, is his shirt. It's plain black, and is smeared with dirt from the previous day’s work. Rey lifts it up with two fingers, pinching it and scrunching her nose at the scent of sweat, then something falls out of the collar. Rey lays the clothes on the bed and leans over to pick the object up. It's a necklace, no, _a dog tag_. It reads, from top to bottom; his name, Kylo Ren. His social security number. His blood type, B. And his religious affiliation, atheist. 

 

So, Kylo really is military. Or at least he was at some point. 

 

She remembers having noticed the flash of it at the gas station, when she had caught her first glance of his bare chest. She wonders why she hadn't noticed it the first time they had sex, but then again, he could’ve been attempting to hide it from her to further conceal the truth of his past. Hence why he had taken it off with his shirt. 

 

Rey lays the tag down on the nightstand, and Kylo walks out of the bathroom at exactly that moment. 

 

“Where’d you find that?” He asks, irritated, like she has somehow invaded his privacy. 

 

Rey rolls her eyes and tries to ignore just how domestic this situation seems. She's naked, he has only a towel wrapped around his waist, and she can tell that they’re about to have a row. “I was picking up our clothes and it fell out of your shirt, if you didn't want me to see it you should've done a better job of hiding it.” She deadpans. 

 

He plops himself onto the bed, indignant. And Rey tries her damndest to ignore the way the water from his bath pools in his clavicle and then drips down over his chest. “You shouldn't go through my things. They’re mine, they’re personal, and they don't belong to you!” He snaps, his face reddening. 

 

And Rey senses it again, that crazy that always has existed inside of him. She'd nearly forgotten it over these last few days, he'd been so kind and seemingly _normal_ , splinting her foot, fucking her when she had needed it. 

 

His words from the night before flood her mind unbidden now. _I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you._ But when she looks into his deep, dark eyes, she doesn't see love. She sees insanity. Insanity and infatuation. 

 

Rey recoils from him, and takes a step back. Looking away from him, at anything but him. Her eyes catch on the floor, where his weight on the bed has shifted the bedskirt up, and she can see a blue box half obscured by the maroon fabric. 

 

She blanches. 

 

Why the fuck would the condoms be under the bed? Her stomach sinks and her eyes fly to between her legs. She thinks that Kylo says something, but she can't hear him over the thundering of her heart in her ears. There, spread on the inside of her thighs, is his dried spend from the night before.

 

Somehow, despite her obvious distress, Kylo is _still_ talking. 

 

“Kylo,” she says softly, and when he ignores her she speaks more firmly, “Kylo!”

 

His head snaps up and they lock eyes. “You didn't use a condom last night.” She says, monotone. Explaining the situation to him with little emotion. Her mind hasn't really caught up with the reality of it all yet. The thought that she could be _pregnant_ is unreal, unfeasible. 

 

“...what?” He sounds confused, he blinks several times, quickly in succession, and then his eyes too fall to the apex of her thighs. “Shit.” 

 

She shakes her head and pinches the bridge of her nose, “‘Shit’ doesn't even begin to describe what I'm feeling right now.” 

 

Rey is surprised that she isn't panicking, that she hasn't collapsed in hysterics yet. Maybe she has underestimated her own strength, she's seen so much already, what's this in comparison to two children shot in their fragile heads by their desperate mother? But these two things are incomparable; one had been an impersonal tragedy, an incident she had only seen snapshots of, in the nursery, on the kitchen table and in the garage. This, this potential _life_ is her own reality, and it could destroy her if she allowed it to. She needs to act, she cannot lie complacent and just let this happen to her, whatever _this_ might be. This world is no place for a child, and she is no broodmare of _Kylo Ren_.

 

His name fills her with such scorn, just blinding anger that he forgot the fucking condom that she contemplates punching him in the face, but she doesn’t. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply. In through her nose and out through her mouth. Rey rationalizes that this is partially her fault as well. She shoulders half of the blame. It takes two, doesn’t it? 

 

She can fix this, it’s not too late to fix this. 

 

“Hand me my clothes.” She says, nodding toward the pile of clothes behind him on he bed. He tosses the whole wad to her, a combination of both of their belongings, and as she picks her own out and dresses herself he sits in silence. She struggles to get the leggings on without disturbing her splint, but she manages it. 

 

“You should get dressed to.” She shoves his clothing at him, “We’re leaving today, we need to find a pharmacy or something. I don't want to stay here any longer anyways.” 

 

“A pharmacy?” He questions. 

 

And Rey nearly facepalms at his obliviousness, “I need Plan B, or something like it. I’m not going to sit idly by and just wait and see.” Her cycle may have stopped, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she isn’t ovulating. 

 

She strides into the bathroom, shouldering past the door and tearing the wooden cabinets open. They’re sparsely stocked and the most relevant thing she finds is a half finished blister pack of birth control. _A bit late for that._ She slams the cabinet shut and stalks back into the bedroom, only to find Kylo still sitting on the bed.

 

“What the hell is your problem!” She shouts from behind him. “This is a big fucking deal and you’re just sitting there like an idiot! The sooner we act the better chance we have of ending this mess cleanly.”

 

He finally stands, and begins to dress himself. “You’re right, we need to find a pharmacy. But you’re staying here. You still need time to recover. I don’t want you to re-injure your foot.”

 

Rey wants to scream in frustration. Her foot will be fine, there are bigger concerns at the moment that need to be addressed, and they’re in the middle of fucking nowhere. Where is he going to find a pharmacy anywhere close? “You know,” she chides, cruelly, “For someone who was in the military you suck at strategizing. I’m surprised you haven’t gotten us killed yet.”

 

Kylo turns on her like a wild animal, his pupils pinpricks and his nostrils flared. She grins at the sight, she’s hit a nerve. The satisfaction is worth it even when one of his hands clasps around her throat. He doesn’t squeeze, rather he pushes his thumb against her jaw to force her to look at him. “Never. Say. That. Again.” he snarls, exposing his teeth. 

 

And Rey laughs before she plants her right foot and clocks him in the jaw. He yelps and recoils. Rey shakes her fist, and hisses as it throbs from the impact. The both stand in silence, breathing hard and watching each other with dark warning eyes. Rey isn’t sure how long she lets it go on before she shatters it with a demand. No, a command. “We are probably thirty miles from the nearest pharmacy, and we have no idea exactly where it might be. It will take us a half day at least to find one, Plan B is most effective within twenty-four hours of unprotected sex. It’s already been what, nine hours? I’m coming with you. And once we’ve both left, and we’re a full day’s drive away, why come back when we could just keep heading west?”

 

Kylo mulls over it for a minute. Rey can see his thinking by the crease in his brow, and the way his eyes focus on a nondescript patch of carpet. “Alright, you’re right. Pack your things, let’s go.” He shoves the dogtag into his pocket and Rey knows that she’ll never see it again, and that speaking of it will probably earn her icy silence. Not that it matters much at this particular moment, but the tag, combined with his reaction to her comment confirm for her the severity of his past. The latter also further proves to her that he doesn’t actually love her, not like he had claimed the night before in that drunken post sex haze, what he feels for her is much darker, something almost sinister, perhaps. And the worst part is; she doesn’t even mind. If whatever he feels for her is enough to make him drive a truck through a zombie infested Walmart, it’s enough to keep her alive until they find other people--which they will eventually, they have to--and from there she can take her leave of this maniac. 

 

She ignores the way the thought makes her heart skip a beat, and shoves past him to start packing her few belongings back into the purse she had taken from Walmart. He gathers his things more quickly and then is gone down the stairs, likely to pack up the supplies he had removed from the truck. It’s once he’s gone and she’s alone again that Rey notices something peculiar about her own behavior, she’s been wearing the same set of clothing for two days. She’s grown so used to existing in her own filth that she has forgotten what it’s like to have a clean change of outfit handy. She removes the old, sex scented leggings, shirt, and panties and tosses them on the floor, changing into a fresh set. She decides to leave the old ones. It’s not like they’ll find a functioning laundromat anytime soon, and she doesn’t want to be covered by the smell of him constantly. 

 

By the time she descends the stairs and is out the front door Kylo is already in the driver’s seat of the truck waiting for her. She climbs in and smiles when she finds that her bat is still tucked neatly under the seat. 

 

They drive for six solid hours in cold, tense silence. And Rey hates it. She taps her fingers anxiously against her thighs and attempts to distract herself by continuously scanning the world around them for any sign of a pharmacy, or even a department store that _might_ have a pharmacy inside, but there is nothing but trees, fields and the occasional house. 

 

She finally breaks the silence by asking a question, “So, those things can starve to death?”

 

“Huh?” He still sounds miffed, but she continues on anyways.

 

“The father, back at the house, he was emaciated. He had starved to death, or that’s what he looked like…”

 

“You’re not wrong,” Kylo seems to relax a little, “They can starve to death, I’m just surprised that he did so quickly. They do this thing, where they enter a dormant state after enough time without any stimulation, like light or movement. Their metabolism slows significantly, and they just kind of stand there and look… _dead_.”

 

Rey gulps. _How does he know this?_ The journal will contain the definitive answer, though she already suspects that she’s onto the truth. This man was at the CDC. In what capacity, or when? She isn’t sure, but he knows so much about the virus it seems impossible for him to have not been there at some point. 

 

He doesn’t seem willing to give up anymore information, or maybe that was the extent of it, so she asks another, less strategic question. “Can you tell me what it is we’re going to California for?”

 

Kylo glances at her from the corner of his eye and then nods, slightly, but he doesn’t answer immediately. He takes a moment to think out his response, several times opening his mouth and then closing it again. He’s fabricating a story, she thinks. Or he’s deciding what exactly is safe for him to reveal to her. Nothing this man does is void of secrecy it seems. “I heard a radio transmission a few weeks ago. It was patchy and unclear, but there was mention of safe havens in California, settlements that were holding out against the hordes and taking in new settlers. I figured it was worth checking out.”

 

His words from days before echo in her mind. _I never listened to the radio much._

 

She gulps, and decides that it’s best not to question him, not now. The dog tag incident had been enough for one day, one more obscurity peeled away from his facade. He’ll slip up eventually. 

 

There is a loud _bang_ from behind them. Kylo shouts and suddenly they’re flying. Everything slows for a breath as they go airborne, the truck tumbling sideways off the road. They slam into a ditch and every glass surface on and in the vehicle shatters at the force of the impact. The shards fall onto them like a crystalline downpour, cutting shallow lacerations into Rey’s skin as her head slams into the door, her temple landing directly on the lock mechanism. 

The world goes black. 

 

She wakes to the feel of hands under her armpits, but she’s only semi lucid. The world sounds as though it’s underwater, voices coming through muted and distorted. And her vision has holes bored into it like burnt paper. She makes out the truck through the fog, broken and half obscured by the ditch. Then she slips under again.

 

The next time Rey wakes it’s to the raw sensation of rope burn on her wrists and ankles. She’s laying on her side, her cheek pressed to the damp wooden floor of some sort of vehicle. At least she thinks it’s a vehicle from all the bumping and jostling. It’s far too dark for her to see. Her head is pounding and she can taste blood on her tongue. 

 

“Kylo?” She calls out, her voice is weak, pathetic. 

 

There is a shuffling sound behind her as he rolls on the floor, he whispers to her with urgency. “Rey. Rey, thank God. You were bleeding so much…”

 

She has a feeling she knows where from, there is a sharp pain emanating from her right temple, where the doorlock had dug into her. She wrinkles her forehead and hisses as she feels the dried blood and torn skin shift. “What happened? Where are we?” She makes sure to keep her voice low, following his example. He knows more than she does about the current situation. 

 

“Bandits, or raiders, or _something_. One of them shot the rear tire of the truck and I lost control.” He sounds enraged, but not at the men who have done this to them. His self loathing is evident from the quiver of his voice, the desperation behind his words. “They pulled us out of the truck while I was disoriented, and there were too many for me to fight off, especially when they had you.” He inhales sharply, she’s never seen or heard him this afraid. She wishes that she could see his face, or offer him some sort of reassurance that everything will be okay, but the inside of the truck is pitch black, and the sinking feeling in her gut prevents her from blurting out any false promises. 

 

“I don’t know who these people are,” Kylo growls, “And I don’t know what they want. But I swear to fucking God, if they so much as--”

 

“Stop.” Rey hisses. He’s getting too loud, they both should’ve learned their lesson about the danger of raised voices by now. Plus, now is not the time to be thinking out hypotheticals. They need to figure out a way to escape. “Any idea how we’re oriented in here? What direction the door to this thing is in? I can’t see, it’s so dark in here.” 

 

There is a pregnant pause where Kylo doesn’t so much as breathe. Then he whispers, horrified, “You can’t see, Rey? Sweetheart, this trailer is only covered in canvas, it’s still daylight. It’s light in here.” 

 

“What?” She gasps, “No. No no no no no no!” She pleads, her voice raising in pitch and volume. “I can’t...this can’t be fucking happening!”

 

Kidnapped, blinded, and potentially pregnant in a post apocalyptic hellscape. She can’t do this. This isn’t real. 

 

“Kylo,” She’s crying, hot fat tears running from sightless eyes, “Kylo please tell me you’re lying. Please!” 

 

“Shhh.” She hears him roll, and suddenly she feels his hard chest pressed against her back. “It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.” He sounds like he’s begging. Like he’s just as desperate and lost as she is. 

 

“This is it,” she whimpers, letting all of the fight go out of her body. All of her previous determination melts into a puddle of viscous, dark despair, “This is the end isn’t it?” 

 

“No.” And he sounds like he is on the verge of tears too. 

 

“Yes.” She bites her lips and fights back another sob as she feels him press his face against her throat, nuzzling there, trying to reassure her with physical comfort because he knows that words mean nothing now. “You know what men like this will do to us. They’ll kill you once they’ve got whatever it is you might have to offer them; supply cache locations, settlement locations, any other information they might need. Then…” she sniffs hard, more tears streaming down her bloody face, “...and then you know what they’ll do to me, what men do to women who are all alone in a world like this.”

 

“I won’t let that happen,” he hisses against her skin, “They won’t lay a fucking finger on you.” She can feel his own heavy tears on her neck, “I’ll kill them all! I won’t let them touch you!”

 

Rey shakes her head and presses her fresh wound hard into the wood, then drags, feeling the scabbing peel away. The burning pain distracts her from the sobbing man at her back, who, if his hands weren’t bound behind his back like hers, would be embracing her right now, clutching her to him. A cruel thought enters her mind, and she voices it without thinking, “Stop it, Kylo. Please, stop it. You don’t love me. You would be able to go on without me.”

 

“Lies.” He hisses into her throat and kisses her there again, “You’re the only thing I care about, Rey. You’re the only thing that matters. I’d burn the world to the ground if it would keep you safe.” 

 

She laughs coldly and without humor into the hard wooden floor, her face is still streaked with salty tears intermingled with sticky blood, “That’s not love Kylo. That’s infatuation. You’re too broken for _love_.” 

 

She jerks her hands against his abdomen, trying to push him away, but he only scoots closer, curling himself around her. He whispers into her ear, hot breath stirring her hair, “What difference does it make in a world like this?” He nips at her earlobe and she pushes harder with her tied hands, he ignores them, “Did it make a difference when I kissed you? When I _fucked_ you?” 

 

The question isn’t rhetorical, he expects an answer. She murmurs, apathetic, “...no, but please Kylo--”

 

“The second,” he snarls, “This trailer opens up again, I swear to God I’ll kill every last one of these fuckers. They won’t take you away from me.” 

 

He’s so disturbed, so twisted and overbearing, so possessive. But it doesn’t frighten her. It fills her with a dangerous hope that she might make it out of this alive and untouched, that he will shield her from these men and all of the rape and agony they represent. It also ignites something far more primitive within her, something that beseeches her to press back into his chest, to let him keep ravaging the side of her throat with his lips and teeth and tongue. 

 

She breaks all over again, silently this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the late chapter, I was sick last week and over the weekend when I normally would have updated. Expect updates to resume as normal. 
> 
> I'm still not feeling great, so I wasn't on my A game this week and I think it shows, I apologize.


	10. Ropes

Rey has no concept of time without her vision. There is no light or dark by which to gage the passing of the day, so she relies on Kylo to serve as her clock. They drive into the night and well into the next morning. Through it all she thinks she can hear the rumbling of other engines outside the truck, a convoy. Her hopes for escape dwindle as the hours slip by in a pool of inky nothingness. 

 

Kylo is right beside her the whole time, as close to embracing her as he can possibly be given the circumstances. His body curved and pressed against her own, his lips on her hair, her cheek, he neck. He makes empty promises, that he will protect her, that he can keep these strange men at bay. She wants to believe him, desperately, but if she’s right and there is a convoy, if they are truly surrounded by dozens of bandits, she and Kylo don’t stand a chance. 

 

When they finally stop Kylo tells her that it’s midday, and he tells her to stay behind him. Not that she has much concept of where ‘behind’ is at the moment. She hears the door to the back open, and feels Kylo tense beside her, then there is a cracking sound, followed by an acute _hiss_. A sickly sweet scent fills her nostrils and she slips under the cold, suppressing waves of unconsciousness again. 

 

_Chloroform!_ The word shatters her sleep as she sits bolt upright where she had been laying. But the world doesn’t come into focus, rather she is met with frightening nothingness, she blinks her eyes and shakes her head frantically, tugging at the unfamiliar bindings that hold her wrists behind her back until her memory of the past day returns to her. _Blinded, right._ The floor beneath her is cold and hard, like concrete, and she can detect a faint draft, leading her to believe that she isn’t locked into a sealed room. 

 

_Maybe…_ “Kylo?” She keeps her voice low and soft, but it’s enough to gain the attention of someone outside. There is a shuffle, several moments of suspenseful silence, and then the sound of a door opening. 

 

Two sets of feet enter the room and they come to stand on either side of her. “Well, looky here, finally awake.” The one to her right is a man with a rough voice and a distinctly southern accent. She can tell by lilt of his words that he has no good intentions toward her. 

 

“What’s yer name girl?” He prods. 

 

“I’m not telling you anything.” She turns her head in the direction of his voice, and tries to maintain some semblance of bravery. If she had her eyes, she might actually be as courageous as she tries to appear, but her lack of sight leaves her disadvantaged and unsure of how to handle herself. How can she protect herself if she can’t see the people who are trying to hurt her?

 

“Oh yeah you are.” The second voice speaks up, also a man, equally gruff but far more aggressive. 

 

“Get up.” The first man demands, nudging her ribs with the toe of his boot. 

 

Rey remains silent on the floor, her head angled away from their voices so that they might not perceive her weakness. She doesn’t think that they are aware of her blindness yet. 

 

The second man kicks her hard in the ribs, knocking the air from her lungs, “He said get up you little bitch!” 

 

She gasps and sputters as her ribs throb and she tries to regain her breath, she manages to push herself up using the hands that are bound behind her, but from there she isn’t sure exactly what to do. She can’t see anything, she has no sense of the space around her; standing up seems like an impossible task. 

 

“I can’t,” she whimpers, shaking her head like it might clear her vision, “I can’t stand up.” 

 

“You can,” snarls the first man, “And you will, because we told you to.”

 

Rey scrapes her fingertips against the concrete floor, “I can’t see! How am I supposed to stand up?”

 

There is a beat of silence, followed by the man to her right grabbing her by her bicep and yanking her to her feet. “How long you been blind girl?” He asks, “Didn’t seem blind when we first pulled you outta that truck.”

 

Rey gulps and answers honestly, maybe she can garner some sympathy from these men, “When I woke up in that trailer, or truck? Whatever it was that you put us in for transport. I woke up in there and I was blind.”

 

“Shit.” Hisses the second man. “The boss won’t be too happy ‘bout this. ‘Specially if it’s our fault she’s like this.” 

 

“Let’s take her to Doc,” the first replies, “He’ll look her over, and if she’s not gonna get any better...well…”

 

They don’t speak after that exchange. They stand on either side of her, each wrapping a dirty, calloused hand around her bicep, and then they start to lead her away. She hears the door to her holding area slam behind them, it’s metal. And the floors beneath their feet are still concrete. She has a sinking suspicion that she knows where they are, or at least the type of facility it had been before the outbreak. 

 

Rey prays she isn’t permanently blinded, that this will resolve itself soon enough, for more than her own sanity. The way the men had spoken of her made it sound like she is entirely disposable, and if she _is_ blind, they have no intention of keeping her. 

 

They pass through another door, and the room smells clean, sterile, like a hospital or a doctor’s office. 

 

“Doc,” one of the men says, “This is one of them wanderers we caught yesterday, says she could see before we caught her, but now she can’t. We need you to take a look at her. If she’s blind for good there’s no point in taking her to the boss.”

 

There is a hearty laugh from across the room, “You mean if you’re the ones who blinded her!” A set of footsteps comes to stand in front of her, and then the owner of those footsteps, Doc. He tilts her chin up, presumably so he can look at her eyes. “Alright, I’ll give her a once over and get back to you. Wait outside while I perform the exam, you two are scaring her, I can tell.” 

 

She hears the other two men shuffle out, and then she is lead and made to sit on what feels like an examination table, complete with the crinkling paper used to keep it clean. 

 

She hears Doc sit on something in front of her, maybe a stool, maybe a chair. “Alright,” he says, “Relax girl, I’ve taken an oath, I won’t hurt you.” 

 

She scoffs, he honestly expects her to believe that? “And the apocalypse doesn’t negate that oath?” 

 

“No, it doesn’t. I need you to cooperate or else there’s a good chance you won’t be allowed to leave this place alive, girl. Just answer a few questions and let me have a look at you, that’s all I need.” He does sound genuine, but she can’t see his face, can’t read his eyes or the curve of his mouth. She hates this. 

 

“What’s your name?” He beings without waiting for her to reply to his previous statement. 

 

She sits for a moment, weighing her options before she finally replies, defeated; “Rey. My name is Rey.”

 

“Interesting name for a girl,” he comments, and she thinks she hears him writing something on a clipboard, “Any last name?”

 

“No.” She answers sternly. She doesn’t want to delve into her complicated past with this stranger, “I don’t have one.” In actuality her last name is listed as Doe on most of her documentation. But it’s not a real name, just a placeholder for an abandoned child. 

 

“Alright. Age?” He asks.

 

“Twenty.” 

 

“And up until yesterday you could see fine? No history of eye problems, glaucoma or anything of the like?” His pen darts quickly against his clipboard and Rey focuses on the sound to keep her calm. 

 

“None.” She replies, “I was fine until the truck crashed, then I woke up and everything was...black isn’t the right word to describe it, there’s just nothing now. No input. Like radio silence from my eyes.” 

 

“Truck crash?” He leans forward a bit and she can feel his gloved thumb brush over the scabbed wound on her forehead from where she had slammed into the lock mechanism. “That must be where this came from.” 

 

“Yes.” She explains, “I hit my head on the door lock, it knocked me unconscious.” 

 

“I see,” Doc says, and she imagines that he’s nodding his head academically. “I think I know what your issue is, Rey. Swelling of the brain caused by head trauma. It will go down, hopefully over the next few days and you’ll regain your sight.” 

 

Rey deflates as she sighs in relief. Slumping against the table. “Oh thank God.” 

 

“Anything else you might need while you’re here with me?” He asks.

 

An image of a blue box of condoms flashes behind her sightless eyes, now is as good a time as any to find out if it’s possible… 

 

“Pregnancy test.” The words fall sloppily from her tongue, she is unsure of how exactly one asks for such a thing.

 

“What?”

 

“I--do you have any pregnancy tests?” She stumbles over her own words, she can feel her face growing flush with embarrassment. 

 

Doc pauses, and she wishes she could see his face so she could grasp some sort of idea of what he might be thinking. Is he judging her? Does he think she’s trying to trick him? “Let me take a look around, but I doubt it. This was a men's prison after all.”

 

Prison. She was right in her hunch. She’s in a prison turned encampment. She remembers the one she had spotted on her way to Atlanta, the size of it, even from hundreds of yards away it had looked massive. How could she ever escape such a fortress? 

 

She tunes back in to Doc’s rambling mid sentence, “...in that journal.”

 

“Sorry, what?” She asks. _Journal?_

 

Rey can hear him shifting through a supply store, looking for a pregnancy test. “I said,” he enunciates each word to the point of condescension, “There is quite a bit of useful information in your boyfriend’s journal.”

 

“...I--how--”

 

“Nope!” Doc says, “No pregnancy tests here, sorry girl. You had better hope you aren’t though, the boss won’t take kindly to such a development. May I ask when you last had unprotected sex?”

 

Rey, still caught on the fact that this man somehow has Kylo’s journal, barely manages to utter the words, “Two days.” 

 

“If you are pregnant you won’t have any real symptoms for some time yet. Some things to watch out for are missed period--of course--swollen or tender breasts, constipation, and slight nausea.” He prattles on. 

 

“Now you must be on your way. Biggs, Wedge!” He shouts and the door reopens, “The blindness is not permanent, it should clear up in a few days time. Just keep her down and resting until then.”

 

Once again there are hands on both of her arms, lifting her up from the examination table and dragging her away. 

 

“Oh!” She hears Doc shout from over her shoulder, “She might be pregnant, be careful with her now!” 

 

“Hmm,” the one of the left, grumbles, “Pregnant?”

 

“Better hope she’s not.” The other responds. 

 

Rey drags her heels on the concrete floor as they tug her along. She tries to memorize the pattern of their walk, the turns they take, the noises she hears and the smells that pass by her nostrils. But she’s too discombobulated and frightened to pick up on much. How do they have Kylo’s journal? Did they go through the contents of the truck and find it? Did he have it on his person when they crashed? She doesn’t know, and the lack of any helpful knowledge about Kylo’s well being is killing her. He could be dead. She understands so little of what is happening here.

 

“The man you found me with,” she asks softly, trying to mask her fear and outrage, “Is he okay?”

 

“He’s not dead if that’s what you’re asking,” Says the man on the right, the one who had kicked her in the ribs. 

 

She shuts up after that, not wanting to further provoke the man, Her ribs are still throbbing. Rey supposes that Kylo not being dead _is_ what she had been asking about. She doubts he’s in much better condition than she is, asking if he were ‘okay’ had been stupid. Of course he’s not okay. They’ve been abducted by men with malicious motivations and been locked in a former prison. Neither of them are okay. 

 

The men, Biggs and Wedge, throw her roughly back into her cell and slam the door behind them, leaving her alone in the inky oppressive nothingness that comes with lack of sight. 

 

Eventually she falls asleep. 

 

When Rey finally wakes the swelling has begun to subside, at least she hopes that it has. She can detect light filtering into her cell from above her head, and shadows in what she suspects are the corners of the tiny room. She manages to wriggle from her place on the floor up onto her haunches, and feels an immense pressure in her bladder. She has to pee. She’s partially blind, with her hands tied behind her back, locked in a prison cell, and she has to pee. 

 

 _Think Rey._

 

This seems to be a maximum security cell, from how heavy the door had sounded. She suspects that there is a toilet right there in the room with her, if only she could just fucking see it. She sits on her ass and slides backward until her shoulders hit hard sheetrock wall, then she begins to to methodically slide herself along it, she’s gotten halfway across the second wall when she bumps into an object. She feels it with her hands, it’s metal, probably stainless steel, and when she reaches the rim she sighs with relief. 

 

Now she just needs to figure out a way to get her pants down her legs. She clambers to her feet and scrapes her waist band repeatedly against the rim of the toilet until she has managed to work her leggings halfway down her thighs. She sits and relaxes, and the relief is immediate, followed quickly by concern. The smell of her urine is strong, she’s dehydrated. When she attempts to flush the toilet she finds that it simply won’t. It hisses and gurgles, but beyond that nothing happens. The prison doesn’t have running water. 

 

“Damn it.” She mumbles as she slides off of the toilet, letting the rim push her leggings back up her thighs. 

 

She’s trapped, half blind, and dehydrated. She rests her cheek against the cool concrete floor and lets her sightless eyes shut. She isn’t tired in the sense that she needs to sleep, she’s defeated. Her limbs so heavy that they refuse to move. Her ribs ache, her head pounds and her throat burns with her newfound thirst. She debates whether or not she should call out for water for a very long time. 

 

She eventually decides that it couldn’t hurt, what more could they possibly do to her? She’s prone and entirely at the mercy of whoever might answer her calls, she poses no threat. 

 

“Hello?” She calls out, her voice is rough and catches in her throat which is raw and delicate from countless hours without water. This reminds her of when she had first met Kylo, how she had woken up barely able to speak. He had given her water immediately, and when she had vomited that up he had given her more. She doubts that these people will be so kind. 

 

“Hello!” She calls out again, louder this time, the sound of her own voice increasing the intensity of her headache. 

 

She hears footsteps and some shuffling outside her door, and then it creaks open, a high metallic squeak railing against her eardrums as it does. Light spreads over her clouded vision and she can’t help but smile knowing that her sight is returning to her.

 

“What is it?” The person snaps. It’s one of the men from this morning, the one who hadn’t kicked her. Whether he is Biggs or Wedge she isn’t sure. 

 

“I need water, please.” She whimpers, hoping to play off of his sympathies by making herself out to be as pathetic as possible. 

 

The man chuckles, “Wedge!” He calls out, “Get over here, and bring some water.”

 

Biggs continues on, stepping into the cell with her. “I’ll give you some water, girl, but only if you come with us and behave yourself. Water is a privilege ‘round here, ‘specially for people like you.”

 

Rey hears Wedge enter the cell, and feels him lean over her, casting a shadow against the light provided by the door, “Open up.”

 

She’s hesitant, sure that this will be some sort of trick, but she needs water. She _desperately_ needs water, so she opens her mouth and cool liquid pours in, a single mouthful and then is stops. She swallows eagerly. Water. fresh, clean water.

 

“More,” she pleads. No longer needing to pretend to be pathetic, “Please that wasn’t enough.” Now that she’s had a taste of cool, clean water the thirst is all the more intense, her throat burns and her head throbs insistently. 

 

“Ah ah,” tsks Biggs, “Not until we’ve got what we want from you. Come on.” 

 

For the third time that day they lift her by her arms and drag her through the corridors of the prison. Or maybe it’s been two days? She still has no concept of how much time has passed. Between her blindness and her unconsciousness it’s nearly impossible to tell. 

 

“How’re the eyes little lady?” Wedge asks, giving her bicep a hard squeeze. 

 

She doesn’t see any point in lying, so she admits to them to truth of it, “I can see some light now, but not much else.” 

 

“That’s good.” Biggs comments. 

 

Rey nods in agreement.

 

They go through a set of double doors, and then Rey is forced into a chair. She thinks it’s wooden by the creak of it when she sits. 

 

“Rey…” She hears his voice, so familiar yet different now. He sounds exhausted. She can imagine the dark circles under his eyes, the sallowness of his skin. 

 

“Kylo.” she hadn’t expected to feel such emotion upon being reunited with him, especially in a situation as uncertain as this one. But she finds herself choking back tears.

 

_He’s alive, thank God he’s alive._

 

“So that’s your name, huh?” A new, low, menacing voice breaks the moment of joyous reunion into pieces. The comment is followed by a sharp _slap_ as Kylo is hit.

 

She hears Kylo spit, then he snarls at his tormentor, “Fuck you!” 

 

The torturer laughs, then deadpans, “Cut the girl.” 

 

There is the acute shriek of a knife unsheathing, and Rey attempts to jump from her chair but finds herself restrained by a forceful hand on either shoulder. The cold blade of a knife presses into the skin of her cheek, not hard enough to cut her, but enough to sting. 

 

“Stop! Fucking stop!” Kylo shouts and she can hear him struggling against whatever it is that's holding him back. “I'll give you what you want just don't hurt her!”

 

The pressure of the knife against her skin lessens. And she gulps, pressing her back hard against the chair, the rungs digging into her spine. 

 

“You want her unharmed, Kylo?” The knife comes away from her face completely. “Answer my questions. If I even think that you’re lying to me she faces the consequences.” 

 

“Okay, okay,” Kylo pleads, “Whatever you want.” 

 

The man with the knife steps away, but the hands remain on her shoulders. 

 

“First question. Where are you coming from?” 

 

Kylo’s answer is immediate, and very believable, “Gainesville, Florida.”

 

“U Florida, huh? You seem a bit old to be a student,” Growls the man, and Rey hears someone shift behind her.

 

“I was a professor,” Kylo continues smoothly, “She was one of my students.”

 

“Professor of what?” The man spits, and Rey thinks he might be catching on to the lie, but Kylo goes on faultlessly.

 

“History, my specialty was military history but I taught quite a few basic classes as well. She was one of my students.” He repeats himself.

 

“Hmm, so why exactly are you out this far west?” 

 

“We just wanted to move, to get away from Florida. West seemed as good a direction as any.” 

 

There is a long, tense pause, during which Rey realizes that these men likely haven’t seen Kylo’s journal, or else they would know the truth of everything. Unless the damned thing is filled with irrelevant chicken scratch--which she sincerely doubts--Doc is keeping secrets from his boss. It makes sense, really. The man had seemed a bit eccentric. 

 

“I think you’re lying to me.” The Boss states, monotone and uninterested. “Do it.” 

 

And then there is a quick movement beside her, followed by hot pain lancing across her right cheek. 

 

“Shit!” She hisses, struggling against her bindings and the hands on her shoulders, desperate to put pressure on the fresh wound. She can feel the warmth of her blood as it drips over her skin, taste it as it passes by the corner of her mouth. 

 

“Fuck!” She can hear Kylo fighting against whoever is holding him back, she can hear every cuss and punch thrown at him by his assailants and she shouts back for him.

 

“Kylo!” She begs as she is pulled up from the chair, “Kylo please!”

 

She wishes she could see him, she wishes she could see what she knows that they’ve done to him. She wants confirmation, and something to further stoke the fires of her rage, to reignite the fight within her and give her the will to do something, _anything_. But she is blind and bleeding and pathetic. Rey can only go limp between the two men who hold her by her arms and sob as they drag her away. 

 

Even once she has been thrown back into her dank, cold cell she can still hear the echoes of Kylo’s struggle in her mind, she can still hear the chair shaking, his voice raising in curses, the sound of his body being pummeled by fists, his fear when she had been brought into the room and restrained before him.

 

She sobs until she has no more tears left to cry, and then she sobs some more. Dry desperate sounds that rise up from her chest unbidden, tearing at the already raw and ragged skin of her throat. She hates them, all of them, Doc and Biggs and Wedge, every damned man in this complex. She’ll kill them all if she gets the chance, for what they have done to her, _for what they have done to Kylo._

 

 _Oh God, Kylo._

 

The agony that envelopes her entire being is far more than physical. She doesn’t think she can make it out of this without him, she needs him to stay alive for her sake. If they kill him she’ll have nothing left to fight for, nothing left to care for. Finn, Poe, Jess, all of her friends from before, her own family, all dead or lost to time, Kylo is her only anchor to this world. Suddenly all of the strife and anguish she had experienced following the Walmart incident makes sense, she needs him, just as desperately as he needs her. This may not be love, but it’s enough. Enough to keep them both alive. This infatuation she feels, this deep desperate need to be near him, with him, to keep him safe and for him to do the same in return, it’s all she has left, and it’s all she needs. 

 

She swipes her fingers across the cold concrete floor and rubs the dust into her wound. 

 

She has a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, it is a day late, but I'm getting back on schedule. I'm still not feeling great and life is throwing quite a bit at me right now, so I sincerely apologize if this isn't satisfactory. 
> 
> We're nearing the climax of the story though! Sometime in the next two to three chapters I hope!
> 
> Thanks everyone for reading and being patient with me and my recent lack of time management. :)


	11. Saline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some graphic imagery and mentions of sexual abuse.

Infection. Rey knows infection. It has festered in her foot, driven her to delirium, nearly killed her. It _would_ have killed her if Kylo hadn't found her. Now she faces it again, but no help seems to be coming. 

 

Two days have passed since she last saw Kylo. Water has been brought to her twice over those two, long, agonizing days. Only a ladle full at a time. Her head pounds and her cheek is _hot_. So hot. It burns and itches and leaks a viscous, cloudy fluid. Infection. 

 

Her plan could still work. That's the one hope she has, her one chance to escape, her one chance to save Kylo and herself from the untold horrors of this place. But no one has called for Doc. Her captors ignore her wound, the way it weeps and pulses and throbs. They ignore her fever, and the way she vomits up her second ladle of water. 

 

The only silver lining of her prolonged prison stay is that her sight has mostly returned. At first she had only been able to detect lights and darks, then shapes and some colors, and now the world is clear again. Things are still a bit blurry, and quick movements make her head throb, but these could also be a symptom of the fever, or dehydration. 

She blinks, and presses her burning face into the floor. Soaked in sweat and shivering with fever she calls out, “Someone...please…” 

 

Her voice is hoarse, her throat raw and dry, but she manages to plead a second time, hoping that Biggs or Wedge will hear her. She knows that they tend to loiter nearby, she can hear their voices at night when it's quiet. It’s thanks to them that she knows there is another settlement nearby, or at least suspects that there is. 

 

They talk about raids and possible supply runs to a nearby town, but always seem to come back to one particular group; The Farm, is what they call it. They don't sound particularly friendly, but they seem to be in competition with whatever operation it is that these goons are running, so Rey decides that she likes them. 

 

The door to her cell finally creaks open after hours of her being wrapped in darkness. It's Wedge. “What is it girl?” He leans in the doorway and taps his foot impatiently, arms crossed over his chest, looking down on her like she's nothing more than an insect. 

 

She rolls over onto her side, exposing her gashed and festering cheek, “It’s bad, please, I need medical attention.” 

 

Wedge cocks an eyebrow, unconvinced. “I think that we’ll wait a spell longer ‘fore we take you to Doc.”

 

Rey coughs into the concrete, “...why?” Why make her wait? Is this just so that they can watch her squirm and suffer for a day or two longer? Is that what these men are after? 

 

Biggs appears over Wedge’s shoulder, when he catches sight of her wound he seems more concerned than his compatriot. His brow furrows, “Wedge I think we ought to take her to Doc. It's gotten worse since I last checked on her. It wasn't oozing like that before…” 

 

“Well damn it!” Wedge snaps turning on heel to face his friend, “If you want to take her then go ahead, but if boss finds out we let it get this bad--”

 

“If she dies the boss _will_ know that it got this bad.” Biggs argues, stepping around Wedge and into the cell. He grabs her by her arm and tries to lift her onto her feet, but her knees are weak and they buckle under her weight. “Lend me a hand you half wit!” He snarls, and Wedge begrudgingly comes to her other side. They lift together and take her out into the dimly lit hallways without any covering over her eyes. 

 

Even in her fever fueled stupor Rey attempts to put the route to Doc to memory. This could be essential if she ever tries to make an escape. It's simple, a long hallway lined with semi-modern white walled cells. Then a right into a maintenance hallway, then a left into another. At the end of it there is a stainless steel door with a sign hanging over it. “Medical” it reads in plain white block text. 

 

Wedge bangs his fist on the hard steel door, and Rey cringes at the sound of his knuckles cracking, but he doesn't seem to mind. 

 

They wait a moment and then the door opens with a hard _clunk_. A tall thin man with a scraggly white beard and untamed hair stands in the doorway. He wears a set of thick rimmed coke bottle glasses that perch precariously at the end of his beak-like nose. 

 

“What?” He asks, “What is it?” 

 

Wedge, Biggs and Rey all remain silent for a moment, dumbstruck that he hasn’t noticed the pus oozing down Rey's face.

 

The doctor looks at them expectantly until Biggs finally motions to Rey’s cheek, “She’s got an infection. We need you to patch her up.” 

 

Doc sniffs and leans forward to examine the gash, pushing his glasses back up his nose with two fingers. “Well, this certainly isn't good. Are you still blind, girl?” 

 

Rey shakes her head ‘no’. She doesn't feel strong enough to speak. 

 

The doctor frowns and takes hold of her wrist, then supports her weight as Biggs and Wedge let go by putting her arm over his shoulders. “I’ll take her, boys. You’ve done enough harm already. She’s staying with me until I'm certain she's well, so scurry along. Go back to doing whatever it is you brutes do in your spare time, pissing contests and the like.”

 

The door slams shut behind them before either Biggs or Wedge can respond. Doc leads her over to his examination table and has her sit on it. A knife materializes from somewhere on his person and he cuts her restraints. But she doesn't have the strength to lash out at him. She can picture it, striking out at him when he had expected her to be sniveling, vulnerable mess. Tearing his own knife from his frail, shaking hands and cutting the papery skin of his throat. Then running to Kylo, taking him into her arms and whisking him away from this hell. 

 

It's a silly thought. 

 

Doc leaves her side but is back in a moment with a thin white pillow. He sets it down at the head of the table and she collapses onto it a bit too eagerly. She inclines her head towards him at an angle to optimize his access to her torn, ragged flesh. 

 

But Doc doesn't look at her face, rather he pinches and pulls the dirty skin on the back of her hand and frowns as he watches it slowly go back down. “Before I examine your face I'm going to start you on a saline drip. You’re severely dehydrated.” 

 

Rey doesn't have the strength to complain. She just nods and closes her eyes. Listening to the odd little doctor bustling around her. She barely notices when he flips her arm over and inserts the IV, but she is aware of the sudden cool sensation running up her arm. She shivers.

 

“Relax,” Doc soothes, “It’s just salt water, it won't hurt you.” She feels the rubbery texture of his latex gloves press gently against her cheek, “Now let me see…”

 

He ‘hmms’ and prods at her cheek to the point of pain, then he pulls back and offers her an explanation. “It's severely infected. You’re lucky that those two fools brought you to me when they did, this could easily go systemic.” 

 

“What does that mean?” She whimpers, from his grave expression she guesses it isn't good. 

 

“It means you’d die. I don't have the materials I would need to treat blood poisoning. I'm going to clean it and put a topical antibiotic on it, this isn't going to be pleasant for you. I apologize in advance.”

 

He’s right, it’s not pleasant in the slightest. The cleaning is by far the worst part. He uses a piece of sterile gauze to clean the pus and grit from the wound, then he applies an anti biotic and she nearly screams. It’s like when she had dumped iodine on her foot, only a thousand times more intense. This wound is on her face and already infected, the burning is immediate and intense, white hot and all encompassing. Her fingernails dig into her palms and her teeth grind as she buckles down and bears it. 

 

Once he has finished and placed a bandage over the wound he informs her that she will be staying with him until he’s certain the infection is under control. There's a double meaning to it, one that Rey isn't so sure she’ll like. He's holding her here to keep an eye on her, she's sure of it. But is he working against her? Two days previous he hadn't yet revealed the existence of Kylo’s journal to his comrades, and that means _something_. But a lot can change in two days, he very well could have exposed everything by now. They could be torturing Kylo at this very moment. _He could be dead_. 

 

Rage and terror rise up in her gut, scalding her insides like fire. She shifts on the table and attempts to sit up. But he puts a hand on her shoulder and holds her down with surprising force for an old man. 

 

“Down.” He says, not ungently. Then he disconnects her from the saline drip and attaches a syringe filled with clear fluid into her IV. He presses his thumb down, the substance dispensing directly into her veins, and she becomes drowsy instantly. 

 

Rey's head spins and her eyelids feel like weights set against her skull. “Wha was tha?” She slurs, throwing her head clumsily to look at the doctor. 

 

“A sleep aid.” He says vaguely, his smile far too smug for her liking. But she's too tired to argue.

 

She can't fight it anymore. She falls asleep. 

 

Rey comes in and out of consciousness more than once. Every time Doc is there, leaning over her, smiling like a madman and pressing another vial of medication into her IV. The world appears bright and fuzzy, the lights paining her eyes, and then she is gone again.

 

This goes on and on, each time she wakes, she is put back under immediately, until one time she isn't, because Doc isn't in the room. A new face is. 

 

He's cold looking, with a gaunt face and icy eyes. His red hair is combed neatly over his scalp, and his face is spattered with pale freckles. After she blinks the induced sleep from her eyes, she notes that he's wearing a finely tailored suit. He smiles at her and all she can think is that this man is a snake. A viper poised to strike. 

 

“Hello, Rey.” He greets her, his voice oozing with faux hospitality. She's sure that at some point he’ll refer to her as his ‘guest’. If she weren't convinced that he'd cut out her tongue, she'd spit in his scrunched little face. 

 

_How does he know my name?_

 

“I would like to apologize for our previous…discourtesy towards you. You are a beautiful young lady, and therefore our guest.” There it is. 

 

Rey glares at him from her place on the table. Doc is nowhere to be found, kicked out of his own office no doubt, by this weasel of a man. 

 

“Are you the boss I've heard so much about?” She hisses. She tries to sit up, but is shocked to find that her wrists and ankles are held tight to the table by leather straps. She struggles against them for a moment, tearing and tugging until her wrists hurt, then she drops them and grumbles. Defeated, for the time being. 

 

The man cocks his head, smirking. “Yes...yes I suppose that is what my lesser peons call me. I prefer The Warden. Though my real name is Hux, but you will call me The Warden. You may be my guest, but I have many guests here, and I am not on a first name basis with any of them.”

 

Rey pales, picking up on the innuendo. _Guest_. Guest means whore. No, whores are willing. She doubts that many of his guests are. Slaves. That seems more fitting. 

 

“What do you want with me?” She snarls through bared teeth, keeping her eyes locked onto his smug, bastard face while she pulls hard against her restraints. 

 

Hux’s smug expression falls into resentment, his upper lip twitches and he takes a step closer to the table; smooth, catlike. “You will convince Ben to tell me the truth. He's proving to be quite troublesome.”

 

“Who the hell is Ben?” She fires at him. Flinching as he reaches out and lays a cold, thin hand over her own. 

 

“That's right,” he chuckles, “He goes by Kylo now, doesn't he?”

 

Rey stops responding. Choosing instead to remain silent, but her indignance isn't genuine; beneath her thin, piqued facade she is afraid, very afraid, and very confused. This man knows Kylo by another name, a name that is implied to be his _real_ name. It makes sense, Kylo isn't much of a name at all, at least not one she's heard of before. But how does Hux know this name? Rey clenches her fists and looks away from him towards the sterile white wall. She won't do him the service of asking any more questions. It's what he wants, and she will make it as difficult for him as is humanly possible. 

 

Hux watches her, smirking again with his head tilted slightly to one side. If she didn’t know any better, if she weren’t strapped down to a table and trying desperately to look at anything but this man, she’d mistake his demeanor for academic curiosity. But she does know better, and when he begins to undo the leather restraints over her right wrist her blood runs cold. 

 

“Men!” He calls out over his shoulder and the door is open in half a second. Three men, Biggs, Wedge, and Doc all come spilling in, standing tall, at attention, waiting for a command. “Help me get her on her feet. We’re taking her to see the prisoner. Maybe she can talk some sense into him.”

 

Biggs and Wedge both scurry to help, Rey likens them to rats scampering under the gaze of a hungry cat. They undo the straps and have her sitting up on the table in a matter of seconds. She looks to Doc, the only person she can even begin to trust in this place, but he doesn’t return the gesture with his usual absentminded kindness, instead he looks cold, calculating. His eyes roam up and down her form twice before they lock onto her own. Rey’s heart falls. 

 

 _Sociopath._

 

She wonders if he’s given them the journal yet. But, considering the fact that Kylo is still alive, that they’re still interrogating him for information, she doubts it. Why keep it a secret?

 

Rey doesn’t have the opportunity to ask. She is grabbed by Biggs and Wedge and led from the room with little grace. She trips over her own clumsy feet several times as she readjusts to being on her legs after so many days.

 

“Fucking walk, girl!” Wedge snaps, “It’s not hard!” He gives her ankle a swift kick and she cries out, falling again. Luckily Biggs is there to catch her weight and keep her from hitting the floor. She limps along with them after that, whatever healing her ankle had managed in Kylo’s makeshift splint undone by a wretch of a man. 

 

“You think he’ll gab to her, Boss?” Biggs asks, giving Rey’s arm a particularly hard yank when she begins to lag behind. “What if he really doesn’t know anything?”

 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Hux quips, not bothering to spare his goon a glance over his well tailored shoulder, “Of course he knows something. He’s her son for God’s sake. There’s only one place they could’ve been going.” 

 

_Son? Whose son? Where is the only place they could’ve been going? What is it? More things Kylo has kept hidden from her?_

 

“And I think he may very well submit when we present him with his whore, especially if she turns out to be pregnant,” the bastard chortles, and this time he does glance back at them, only not to look at his peons, but at her, “He’s been crying for her for two days now, the poor bastard.”

 

Rey’s lip curls her her fists ball at her sides. He’s been calling out for her. _He needs her_. She has to get to him, she has to help him. She’ll do anything to get him out of this alive. _Anything_.

 

“Stop.” Hux raises both of his hands and Biggs and Wedge both come to an abrupt halt, jerking Rey between the two of them. “I want to show our guest exactly what is at stake here.” 

 

There is a set of double stainless steel doors to their left. He punches a code into the keypad beside them and they pop and hiss as they unlock. Hux shoulders through the right door, and holds it open with his back, extending a welcoming arm into what looks like it had once been a communal room of some sort, by the TVs hanging black and dead from the walls and the couches that have been pushed haphazardly into the center of the room. But these things fail to distract from the horrors that line the dirty sheet rock, permeate the air with their cries and pleas. Women, twenty at least, are chained to the walls, heavy shackles binding their feet and ankles. Most of them wearing only a bra and pair of simple underwear, some wearing even less. They’re dirty and mewling. Slaves. 

 

Rey recoils, stepping as far back as Biggs and Wedge will allow, and then she tries for further, struggling against them, kicking and snapping until they yank her forward, further than before, and force her down onto her knees. She gasps as her kneecaps make contact with the hard concrete floor, she feels them scrape and split as they drag. 

 

“Please, please stop.” She whimpers, knowing that Hux doesn't care, he wants her to see this. To smell the piss and shit that these women exist in, their own filth. He wants her to see the despair, hear it, taste it on her tongue. 

 

“These are our newest female recruits,” Hux explains like he's showing off a home, or trying to sell a car, “We’re still in the process of breaking them, but it's going quite well. None of them are nearly as spirited as you are.” He smiles, pearly white, as his eyes move across the room, taking in his work, his property. “Then again, you have something to fight for. Something that keeps you alive, keeps you from giving up. If you do not convince Kylo Ren to tell us the whole truth of everything he knows about Leia and The Farm, he will die. And after I have gouged his pretty brown eyes from his skull, I will strip you down, chain you to one of these walls, and beat you until you are exactly what I want you to be.” He’s grinning now, grinning at the thought of her prone and submissive, head bent at his feet. 

 

She spits at him and it lands just inches away from his shined, black dress shoe. “Fuck you!” 

 

His grin widens and he motions to Biggs, “She seems to be averting her eyes quite a bit, make her look long and hard at what the future could hold for her if she fails me.” 

 

Biggs does nothing at first, hesitating behind her. Maybe he is a good man, somewhere deep down inside. But she shouldn't confuse common decency with actual goodness, because when Hux’s grin slips Biggs quickly grabs Rey by her hair and forces her head up. She gasps at the sensation of having her scalp torn at, and tries to look away from the suffering before her, but there is nowhere that she can look where there isn't a woman, bloody, filthy, and chained to a wall. Nowhere to look except down.

 

“Look,” Hux hisses, “Look at them!” 

 

She doesn’t. She looks away, down to the floor, she’s seen them. She can’t look any longer. 

 

“I said look!” Biggs and Wedge both let her go and then the heel of Hux’s boot is planted squarely against her sternum, sending her skidding over the dirty floor. She lays still for a moment, curled in on herself, trying to block everything out, trying not to hear, or see, or smell the terror of this room, the inhumanness of it. 

 

“Listen here, girl,” He spits, knelt beside her, directly into her ear, “And listen well. You _will_ make Kylo speak--I don’t care how, you could fuck him for all it matters to me--and if you fail, you _will_ become one of the pleasure girls I keep for my men. If you succeed? That’s a different story. If you make him talk I’ll keep you as my own personal pet, you’ll be well fed and well cared for. You’ll never want for anything again.” She can hear that smug fucking smile spread back across his face, “I quite like you. I can tell you’ll be very pretty once we’ve washed and fed you.” He reaches around her front and gropes her left breast through her shirt. She grinds her teeth and lets him, not wanting to draw any further rage from his man. She can feel the scrapes from sliding across the floor beginning to bleed, the bruises beginning to purple across her chest from his kick. 

 

“And what about Kylo?” She asks, “What happens to him if I succeed?” She already knows. They’ll execute him, quickly and cleanly, the best deal that they can offer. What else would they do with a grown man imprisoned on their property once his usefulness has run its course? Rey just wants Hux to say it, to tell her their plans so she feels no guilt when she does absolutely nothing the man asks of her.

 

Hux chuffs and removes his hand from her body, rising to his feet. “He already knows what his options are. His fate is entirely in his hands.”

 

Biggs and Wedge are at her sides again, hoisting her up and dragging her from the torture room. That’s the only thing she can think to call it, that place where women go to be broken. Hux closes the door behind them and then leads the way again. Rey lets his peons carry most of her weight, and keeps her head bowed. Her cheek still pulses, and she wonders how much time has passed since they arrived here. 

 

They come to a cell door, the same as all the others, ubiquitous to this hell. The only thing that separates this one from the hundreds of others in a red mark on the door, a circle with a line through it, made with spray paint. 

 

Before he opens the door, Hux turns to her and catches her chin between his thumb and his long, thin, pale forefinger. “One more thing, Rey.” He digs his nails into her face as she tries to jerk away, “I’ve been informed that you might be pregnant. If you fail, I’ll beat the child out of you.” She grimaces at him, and he lets her face go. She lets her head drop so that her chin nearly touches her chest. 

 

She doesn’t know if she’s pregnant or not, and, all things considered, she doesn’t really care about some hypothetical child. Kylo is all that matters. Kylo, that’s it. She’ll do anything to get him out of here alive, potential pregnancy be damned. 

 

Hux opens the door with a small key he produces from his belt, and then Biggs and Wedge throw her into the surprisingly well lit room. The overhead light flickering every couple of seconds. Her eyes scan the area, it’s dirty, and there is dried blood speckled over nearly every surface. Ice cuts her in two when her eyes befall Kylo, crumpled and curled in on himself in the corner like a dead cockroach. He’s so much worse than his voice had given away. His skin is sickly pale, covered in bruises and welts. His hair is stringy, tangled and damp with sweat, dried and clumped in some places with what can only be blood. His shirt is gone, revealing the extensiveness of his beatings and how they’ve starved him. His ribs are on display like a perverse xylophone, one that has been played many times if the black and blue painted across them is any indication. They don’t even have him bound anymore, he poses so little threat to them.

 

Rey can’t stand. She drags herself over to him, shaking and sobbing, and when she puts a gentle hand on his bicep he _flinches_. She yanks her fingers away like she’s been scalded. _What have they done to him?_

 

“Kylo?” She sobs, “Kylo it’s me, it’s Rey.”

 

He opens his eyes and lifts his head from the floor just enough to glance at her, his dark eyes go wide and he manages to roll himself so he’s facing her. “Rey.” He gasps, “Rey you have to get out of here.” He wraps his arms around her waist and buries his face in her stomach, clutching her to him as best he can. 

 

She cards her fingers through his hair, greasy and damp, “I’m trying,” she coos, “I’m trying to think of a way to get us out but--”

 

“No.” He says into her abdomen, then he looks up to her, teary eyed, pleading, “Just you. It’s too late for me, they’ll never let me go. So you’ll have to. I don’t know the information that they think I have, I can’t give it to them. They’re going to kill me, but you can spare yourself the same fate.” Tears are running hot down his face now, clearing away grime and dirt on their trek, “Please, Rey. Get out of here, survive for me.” 

 

The weight of what he’s asking for bears down on her like a ton of stone, crushing her beneath it. Just a week ago she would have fled in a second, no questions asked, but _now_? No. She can’t. Everything has changed between then and now. Now she can’t lose him. 

 

“Don’t ask me to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself.” She chastises weakly. If he’s going to die here, she will too. 

 

He nuzzles against her stomach, “You don’t love me. I thought we established that on the way here. What exists between us isn’t love. You don’t have any reason to stay.”

 

Rey remembers it, establishing the difference between love and infatuation and drawing an arbitrary line in the sand. But love and infatuation aren’t mutually exclusive, she understands that now. What he feels for her, as dark and possessive and fucked as it is, it’s still love; desperate and perverse, but it’s love nonetheless. And she reciprocates the feelings entirely. She understands now how he operates. She understands wanting to end every single person who has ever laid a hand on him, ever caused him any harm. 

 

She turns his face away from her abdomen, leans down and kisses his chapped lips carefully. It’s chaste and gentle, and when she pulls away she locks her eyes with his own, “I am in love with you, Kylo Ren,” she lets the pad of her thumb pass over the corner of his mouth, “And I will get us both out of here alive, or die trying.” 

 

He grabs her wrist in a thin, shaking hand, bruised and cut from hours and hours of unending torture, “Please, Rey. You have to run.”

 

Rey shakes her head and leans down, pressing another kiss to his forehead. “I can’t.” She whispers against his feverish skin, “You know that I can’t.”

 

“Rey, listen to me,” he begs, and he’s crying again, desperate to keep her alive, the hypocrite, “I don’t know any of the information they want from me, I don’t have it. As soon as you leave and they discover that you’ve ‘failed’ they’ll kill me,” he’s shaking now, clinging to her, soaking her shirt with tears, “and...and I know what they’ll do to you, they’ve told me what they’ll do.” 

 

“What is it that they want from you?” She asks. _Who is Leia? What the hell is The Farm?_.

 

“It’s my mother,” he sounds exasperated, like he hadn’t wanted to tell her this but now he has no choice, “And they think I’m working for her. I haven’t spoken to her in years, Rey. She has some sort of operation set up in this area, one that competes with their own. They think I can help them, but I can’t. _I don’t know anything._ And now they’re hurting you.” His fingers brush over the bandage on her cheek. She can tell by his forlorn expression that he blames himself. 

 

Rey catches his hand in her own, “Don’t.” 

 

“You’re everything, Rey.” He gasps, and she kisses his lips again. He tastes vaguely of blood, coppery and tangy. 

 

She pulls away and presses her forehead against his own, bumping their noses together, “You’re integral to them, they won’t kill you right away, they won’t chain me up and beat me right away. I have some time. I promise I’ll come back for you. Make something up if you must, just promise me that you won’t stop fighting.” He’s so weak, so bloody and beaten, asking him for more feels like a betrayal. But it’s the only option she has.

 

“Rey--”

 

“Promise me!” She thinks she might cry again. She needs this reassurance more than anything. She needs him to promise that he _won’t die_. 

 

He watches her for a long time, she can feel him putting her to memory. “I will.” 

 

It’s a lie. 

 

She accepts it anyways, bending down and kissing him hard. “I love you.” She murmurs against his lips, harshly, possessively. And then she stands, leaving him behind, but only for now. She walks back to the door, knocking on it twice. 

 

It opens and Biggs and Wedge tug her out by her arms. She hears Kylo mumble something behind her, a threat maybe, she isn’t sure. But she can’t look back, it would feel too much like a goodbye. 

 

Hux slams and locks the door, then looks at her expectantly, “Well?” 

 

Rey gulps and then lies as best she can, “He’s hesitant, please, please let me speak to him again tomorrow if he won’t give you anything today. Please, I think he’ll talk, he wants to keep the baby alive just as badly as I do.” It’s a terrible thing to do, use what might not even be a real baby, a potential child that she doesn’t even care about, to play Hux. But it might just work. 

 

He remains silent for a long few seconds, then waves all three of them off. “Take her back to the good doctor. He mentioned wanting to monitor her further because of that infection in her cheek.”

 

“Yessir!” Both Biggs and Wedge snap to attention and drag her away from the man she loves. Back to Doc. 

 

Doc. Doc is a conundrum. She had thought that he might be on her side initially. When he was kind to her and checked her eyes, when he had hooked her up to the saline drip and treated her infection. But he had also put her under, over and over again, and he had let Hux take her with little care or argument. It’s clear to her now that he’s a free radical, unpredictable and untrustworthy. He’ll do whatever best benefits him. Sociopath. He still hasn’t given them the journal. Why?

 

When they reach Doc’s office they open the door and shove her inside with little ceremony, slamming the door behind her without a word. It’s empty. Doc isn’t there. She has been left unbound and unchecked inside a room stocked with medical supplies. At first she thinks it might be a trick, a test to see if she’ll try anything untoward. But why would they do that? They’ve already got her right where they want her, trapped and subject to their every whim. 

 

The idiots have just made a critical mistake. One that she intends to take full advantage of. 

 

Rey lies down across the examination table and carefully buckles three of the four bindings around her wrist and ankles, so if he checks there’s a three in four chance he finds her bound. Then she lays her right hand in the last one, making it too appear bound. This has to work, it’s the only hope she has. 

 

Now she waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to post this earlier, but it got long. Sorry everyone! 
> 
> There may not be an update next week, I'm very busy up until mid June and it's just killing my writing schedule. Thank you for sticking with me and I hope that this chapter wasn't too much for anyone. <3
> 
> Biggs and Wedge's involvement will be explained a length later I promise, I know no one wants to see them as bad guys, but in this fic they are. They have their reasons, though.
> 
> (Also this chapter put me past 200 pages in google docs. Hooray!!! *confetti emoji*)


	12. Poison

Doc returns, and he doesn’t bother to check the bindings. He goes about his usual work without so much as a glance at Rey. He seems like he was before, distant but kind. An act. 

 

After a few minutes of shifting around at his desk he looks back over his shoulder, cold gray eyes locking onto her, holding her in place, carving her into bits. “I suppose you have some questions, girl.” 

 

Rey huffs and looks away from him, at the ceiling, the walls, anywhere that might draw his attention too. She can feel those eyes boring into her, analyzing her like she’s a specimen in a petri dish. “What makes you think that?” She tries to keep her voice light and unassuming, she doesn’t want to give away the fact that she’s got him figured out. If he really is a sociopath, a chameleon blending to the world as it best suits him, there’s no telling what he might do to her. 

 

“I’m quite certain that you just had a very… _enlightening_ conversation with your boyfriend. Aren’t you wondering why I haven’t revealed the contents of this journal yet?” He knows exactly where to strike, how to pique her interest and bait her into revealing something intimate about herself, something that he could use against her. 

 

She remains silent. Stoically staring up at the white ceiling. 

 

“...hmm.” That academic interest is back, and again she is an insect under a looking glass, “Though I doubt that you’ve seen what’s inside of it. If you had you’d have left that man a long time ago, if you had half a brain in your pretty little skull, that is.” 

 

“I would never leave him!” She snarls, goaded by his words. 

 

Doc throws his white head back and laughs, raspy and loud, “Girl, with the things that this boy has done, I doubt anyone could love him. He’s a monster, an animal. He’s no better than those filthy creatures that wander the streets, they only look human, but on the inside they’re rotten and ruined.”

 

Rey feels her face go red, the rage boiling in her belly is barely contained on her tongue. Kylo is _nothing_ like them. He hates them, hates what they’ve become. He’s probably the most human man in this building. But she keeps her lips sealed tight, unwilling to reveal the extent of her protectiveness over him, how desperate she is to keep him alive, to get him out of here unharmed. If she draws too much attention to herself now Doc might notice the way her right wrist lays limp and unbound between two leather straps.

 

“I will be giving them the journal, by the way,” Doc comments nonchalantly, turning back to the books laid across his desk, “I was holding on to it for study purposes. I found it in his waistband when they initially brought him to me for examination. Inside he had detailed many aspects of the virus I hadn’t known about. A history of it, even. And I knew if I gave it to The Warden immediately I never would have seen it again. He cares so little for my work, my precious research, even though it could be the thing that saves us all. So I kept it, and ran comparisons between it and many of my medical texts, but I’m nearly done now, I’ll deliver the journal to The Warden by tomorrow evening, probably sooner.”

 

Rey’s eyes go wide, that significantly narrows her window of escape. She had hoped that she had two days at least. Now she’s down to eighteen hours at best, “But--”

 

“Yes, yes, that would spell the end for your boyfriend, wouldn’t it?” He chortles, like this actually pleases him. There is no malice behind his words, just genuine enjoyment of the situation at hand. “But not to fear! I’ll need to keep you for another two days at least, to keep an eye on your cheek. The Warden will be very pleased with me if it doesn’t scar. So pleased he might even allot me more test subjects! Speaking of…”

 

He rises from his seat and she glances his notes just past his form. They’re a wild scrawl spilled across several notebooks, laid across a multitude of textbooks. Beside the mountain of paper, unassuming and thin in comparison to all the texts around it, sits Kylo’s journal. Rey makes a mental note to grab both it, and Doc’s own writings when she tries to flee. 

 

“I need to re-bandage and apply more salve to your face, girl.” He drags his stool over so that he can sit beside the table. Rey turns her head towards him, willingly exposing her wound, hoping to keep his attention from being drawn to the loose strap laid gently over her right wrist.

 

She keeps her fist clenched tight the entire time. As he peels the bandage away, filthy and covered in an off green slime. As he wipes the remaining pus and grit away from the area with a sterile piece of gauze. As he applies more antibiotic to the gash and she bites her lip and winces as it burns. Through all of it she keeps her fist clenched and deathly still at her side. 

 

He doesn’t notice, and she deflates, sinking into the table as he finally leaves her side, fresh bandage taped firmly in place. 

 

He glances up at the analog clock he has mounted on the wall above his desk. It’s already 9 p.m. _Go to bed._ Rey wills him to just sleep already. She spies his nylon sleeping bag laid out across the floor by the door, likely placed strategically in case she tries to escape. Too bad she doesn’t intend to leave without cutting the papery skin of his throat, burying a scalpel so deep into his jugular the blood won’t have anywhere to go but out his mouth, between those disgusting yellowing teeth. 

 

But he doesn’t sleep, not right then. No, he stays up for another two hours slaving away over his stupid fucking books. The sound of his pen scratching across the notebook paper carves itself into her skull, emblazons itself across her eardrums, making her want to slam her head against the hard wall just to _make it fucking stop._ She just wants to get to Kylo, to get them the hell out of here and as far away from these maniacs as she can possibly take them. 

 

That’s the issue. Getting them as far away as she possibly can. She doesn’t even know what state they’re in, let alone what direction to flee in, which doorways to take. She doesn’t know where Hux houses his goons and where the exits are. She’s doing this blind--figuratively, of course--and she has no contingency plan. 

 

Scratch that, she does have a contingency plan. If they fail she’ll punch the biggest meanest looking guard in the face, take his gun while he’s distracted and shoot Kylo in the head, then herself. The contingency plan is death. She has to stifle her own morbid laughter through sheer willpower, the mental image of her socking a big, fat, balding man in a cowboy hat and then shooting herself in the head is almost too much to handle. 

 

_Why is this so funny? Am I finally losing it?_ In actuality she thinks she might’ve ‘lost it’ a long time ago, how else could she have possibly ended up in a situation as fucked as this one?

 

Rey snaps from her thoughts, made aware by a sudden, soothing silence. It’s almost enough to make her want to sleep after hours of lying still and listening to that fucking pen move and scratch and tear at the pages of those notebooks. But now isn’t the time for sleep, it’s the time for action. She counts his breaths, they seem even and steady with sleep, but she has to be sure. One, silence, two, quiet, three...on until she reaches thirteen. Timed against the clock on the wall, thirteen in a minute. He’s asleep. 

 

She lifts her right hand from the leather straps, cautiously letting them fall to the sides as she raises it. She’s slow, very, very slow in her movements, afraid that at any moment Doc will wake and strike out at her like a snake. He doesn’t. He remains blissfully asleep on his sleeping bag, entirely incognizant of the mutiny unfolding directly behind him. 

 

Rey unbuckles the clasp on each binding, careful to lower the straps by hand so they don’t fall onto the table. Once she is free she gingerly slides off of the table, cringing as the paper crinkles beneath her, certain that it is her death knell, but still Doc does not stir. She tiptoes across the room to his desk and opens the upper right hand drawer. Inside she immediately spies what she needs, a scalpel. Just like she had imagined. 

 

_I’ll get to cut his throat._

 

She decides that it’s best if she takes care of that nasty business first. No need to risk waking him while gathering the notebooks when she could just eliminate the threat now. Rey tries to make herself think like Kylo does, like a killer does. The things this man has allowed to go on without any intervention are atrocities onto humanity, he has _forfeited_ his humanity. He deserves no sympathy from her. But thinking like Kylo isn’t as easy as acting like Kylo, and she finds herself standing over him where he faces the door, sleeping soundly, the breath from his sleeping mouth stirring his wiry, white moustache. Doc could be any old man in this moment. She clutches the scalpel tightly in her palm, feeling the metal grip tear at her skin as she worries her lip. 

 

Then she pictures Kylo, curled, beaten and bleeding on the floor of that God damned cell, and it isn’t so hard anymore. She gets onto her knees beside him, eyeing the large, blue vein that is visible in the side of his throat, and she brings the scalpel down, once, twice, three times, quick and uninhibited. He chokes and sputters as he wakes, unable to speak as blood pours forth from his wound and his mouth. He gropes at his own throat, desperate, gasping for air. 

 

Rey isn’t moved by his display of fear, what sparks a feeling in her is just how _messy_ this whole thing is. She had expected it to be bloodier than the movies, but this bloody? No. It’s spilled across the floor, soaking into the sleeping bag, sticky red liquid coats her hand where it grips the scalpel, and the whole of the tool beneath it. She thinks she must’ve nicked an artery, maybe that’s what that dark blue vein had been. She worries it might leak out from the crack under the door, so she takes the clean side of the sleeping bag and stuffs it under, trying her damndest not to get her knees damp. 

 

She takes the time to pat search his body, feeling for any hidden weapons on his person. A gun or a knife would be especially helpful at the moment. A scalpel can only do so much damage. He has nothing besides the key to the door, which she pockets, and then Rey uses his white lab coat as a hand rag to clean herself of the remaining blood--a final insult--and steps away from his corpse. 

 

He only takes a few more moments to die after that. Rey watches him the entire time, looming over him like the shadow of death itself, admiring her handywork and loathing herself for it simultaneously. He jerks and sputters and gropes at his throat like he’s trying to apply pressure, at one point he even locks eyes with her, hard, steely gray filled with unadulterated fear. It pleases her beyond reason to watch the man who has held her captive squirm. Doc gives one final, great gasp for air then stops. Everything about him _stops_. His hands go loose around his neck, his chest stops moving with panicked breath, his eyes stop shifting and blinking, instead they stare up to the ceiling, unseeing. 

 

Dead. 

 

Her first human kill, ever, and she can’t bring herself to care. This is just one of the men who has kept her from Kylo, who has held them both against their will and tortured them for days. There will be more deaths this night, one of them might very well be her own. But she isn’t afraid, she has prepared herself for that possibility, and would gladly die attempting to save Kylo’s life. This death, and all the ones that will surely follow, he’s worth all of them. 

 

Rey moves to action, strutting back to Doc’s desk and tearing through his belongings in search of some sort of pack or bag, something she can use to carry all of the notebooks while her hands are otherwise occupied. She finds a backpack and a satchel, and settles for the satchel. It will be easier to maneuver around with a messenger bag, and it buttons rather than using zippers, meaning it will be quieter. 

 

She gathers all of the notebooks from his desk, five in total, and shoves them into the bag with little ceremony. But she stops for a moment when her fingers finally befall Kylo’s personal journal, it’s smaller than she had thought, maybe three quarters the size of an ordinary composition notebook, and it’s worn heavily around the edges. This tiny book, handwritten by the man she loves, holds the answer to every question that has passed through her mind in the past two weeks and some odd days. She might never get to read it. Rey shoves it too into the bag, taking no more time to linger.

 

Rey unlocks the door, slowly turning the key in it’s hole, and poking just the top of her head out to glance left and then right. The way is clear. She clenches her fist around her scalpel and steps out into the narrow maintenence hallway.

 

She follows the path she had taken to Kylo the day before, taking pause several times and questioning her own memory. But she has to trust herself, she can’t slow down now, not when she’s as close to freedom as she is. She comes to a halt, her breath catching in her chest when she reaches the corridor with the heavy, stainless steel doors that lead to the holding room, the place where the women are chained. Wedge is sitting in front of it in a rickety wooden chair, double barrel shotgun slung across his chest, head thrown back, snoring. He’s asleep. 

 

Rey could sneak past. Eek by without so much as a wink from Wedge and continue onward towards Kylo. But she can’t. She won’t. This is the man who kicked her in the ribs, one of the men who has held her here for God only knows how long. And now he sits outside of a torture chamber, a bastion of human indignity, and sleeps like a baby, not a care in the world. She creeps around behind the chair, taking care to watch her step and keep her feet light on the concrete. Once she is directly behind him, she crouches and slowly lifts the scalpel up, bringing it near to the tender flesh of his throat. She pauses for the briefest of seconds, her conscience getting the better of her, and he _wakes_. With a jerk he rocks forward, bringing his own neck onto the blade, and before he can scream, before she can even think about what she does next, she bears down and buries the scalpel handle deep into his throat. He doesn’t make much sound after that, he sputters and chokes and claws at his torn skin, but it’s a quiet death. 

 

Once he has slumped over and breathed his last, Rey feels her way across his utility belt. Bingo. She finds a handgun, much more precise than she could hope for from a shotgun. She checks the safety and then tucks it into her waistband. Then she pulls his six inch serrated hunting knife from his belt, even better. If she can continue to sneak her way through this place, this knife will be infinitely more beneficial than any gun. Knives are quiet. She finds a keyring in his pocket, dozens of keys all linked to it, and she hopes to God that one of them is the key to Kylo’s cell. She pockets them. 

 

She again wipes her hands clean on her victim's clothes, frowning at the blood that has already dried under her nails, and then she looks up, casting one final glance at the double doors. She can’t help them, not now, not like this. If she tries to free them she’ll just get herself caught and killed, and all of them punished. If Rey ever has the chance, she tells herself she’ll come back, and liberate them all personally, but for now she needs to get to Kylo. Kylo is all that matters. 

 

She leaves the room, and the nightmare inside of it behind. 

 

Once on her trek to Kylo she takes a wrong turn, and finds herself crouched in the doorway of a large room, filled with cots, and beds, and sleeping bags. On every single one of them, without fail, there lays a man. Many of them in orange jumpsuits. She slips away as quickly and quietly as she can. Her hand pressed firmly over her mouth to keep herself from whimpering, thanking whatever powers that be that she hadn’t woken any of them. 

 

Rey knows that she has reached Kylo by that strange mark on his cell door, the red circle with a line through it. She doesn’t have the time to ponder over what it might symbolize, or why there is no guard posted at the door of a prisoner she has been made to believe is integral. She starts shuffling around with the keys, trying to keep them quiet but mostly failing as metal clangs against metal. She freezes, cringing as she waits for the footsteps she’s sure will come trotting down the hallway any minute now, but they don’t come. Somehow she has still evaded detection. 

 

Her paranoia takes over, and for a moment she wonders if this is all an elaborate trap. If she has been baited this far just so Hux can catch her in the act and finally have a reason to ruin her. Not that he needed a reason before. But she had sensed that Hux likes to think himself a man of honor, as wrong and twisted as his sense of honor might be. An infraction like this would be the perfect opportunity to abandon that sentiment and tear her to pieces. But no trap has been sprung, so she keeps trying key after key after key. She gets lucky, and of the dozens of keys on the ring it’s the seventh one that slides into and fits neatly to the lock, clicking the door open with near silence. 

 

Rey opens it only a crack, and slips inside. Hopefully if a guard does pass by he’ll be too tired with the late hour to notice that the door stands ajar. The shaft of dim light from the hallway illuminates Kylo’s crumpled, broken form. Pressed into the same corner he had been in yesterday. She doesn’t think that he has moved at all. 

 

“Kylo?” She whispers, “Kylo, love.” 

 

He shifts and throws his head back, looking at her with wild, dark eyes, he’s never seemed more animal than in this moment. It takes several seconds for recognition to pass over his features, and then he looks immensely afraid. “...I told you to run.” He croaks. 

 

Rey kneels beside him and lets her fingers pass over the planes of his face, the pad of her thumb over his full, chapped lips. “And I told you that I wouldn’t.” He’s hot, physically warm to the touch. Fever. But she doesn’t have time to check him over for infected wounds, she has to get him out of here. 

 

She pulls out her knife and begins to saw at his bindings, making quick work of them. When had they rebound him? Just yesterday he had been free. “Can you stand?” She asks once she has moved from his ankles to his wrists. She thinks she has spotted where the source of his fever may lie. There is a spot on his calf where his pants are stuck to his leg with gore and fluids, in the dark cell it’s hard to be certain, but it could easily be an infected wound. 

 

“Yes.” He says, but he sounds unsure. Rey finishes at his wrists, pulling the last of the rope away, and then offers him her hand, using all the the strength she has to pull the lumbering man to his feet. He stumbles, but she catches him on her right shoulder, balancing him and supporting as much of his weight as she can. 

 

Kylo presses his lips to her hair, and whispers against her, “Why didn’t you run?” 

 

Rey wishes she could tell him everything, all of the emotions she has come to understand over these last few horrific days, but there will be time for that later. Instead of answering him she tugs the handgun from her side, clicks off the safety and presses it into his palm. It’s an odd reversal of the moment they had shared outside of that Walmart. 

 

“I need you to be my eyes, Kylo, but I don’t have any extra mags this time, so try to use them sparingly.” She says, letting her fingers brush gently over his cracked, bloodied knuckles. 

 

He presses a kiss to her hair and whispers into her ear, words so filled with longing and heartbreak that she wishes she could break down right there and never get back up. “I’m in love with you, Rey. No matter what you might think.” He thinks that they’re going to die. He has given up. 

 

Rey shakes her head, refusing to return his gesture of emotion until they make it out of this place. Because they _will_ make it out of this place. And then she can tell him everything. She readies her knife in her free hand, and sets her sights on the door. She pushes through it, ready to attack whoever might be on the other side, only to find that the hall is still graciously empty. 

 

She glances left and then right, then left again. Unsure of which direction the nearest exit is in. She honestly hadn’t thought that she would make it this far. Her game plan has come down to its final bullet point, escape. But she doesn’t know which direction escape is in. 

 

“Left.” Kylo says. The opposite way from that which she had come. She nods and starts walking, Kylo limping beside her. His feet making more noise than she would like as they pad over the cold, hard floors, but there’s nothing she can do. It’s obvious to her that he’s wounded now that she has glanced his calf in the light and seen the extent of the damage done to him. 

 

They make it approximately thirty feet down the hallway before a shadow catches Rey’s attention. They duck into a small alcove, one that houses a water fountain and a restroom, and they wait, backs pressed firmly against the wall. But they can’t do this, Rey won’t let them do this, wait in the shadows cowering like mice under the gaze of a snake. She carefully lowers Kylo to the floor, and leans him back against the wall. 

 

His eyes widen as he catches on to her plan, “Rey,” he whispers, “Rey, don’t do this...please.”

 

She presses a firm kiss to his lips, and then lights out down the hallway. Keeping low and watching the approaching shadow closely. She stops at the corner and waits, waits until she can hear his breath, smell his stench, and the she pounces. Springing out, knife raised and taking the man down to the floor. She stabs and stabs and stabs until he has gone still and silent. And then she hears another. 

 

“What was--”

 

She’s already sprinting towards the source of the voice, not intent on letting him get any further, not allowing him to see the mess she has made and cry out for help. She catches him just around the next bend and ends him too, just as easily as the first with the element of surprise on her side. 

 

Just down the hallway she can see them, three sets of reinforced doors that had once held all of the occupants of this super-max prison tightly inside. Two of them propped open on wooden door stops now that the guests have taken control. No other guards stand between her and freedom. But she needs Kylo, she will not leave this place without Kylo. She doubles back, passing the two kills she has made and returning to the alcove where she had left him. 

 

He’s sitting in the same position she had left him in, fists clenched anxiously at his sides. His eyes nearly bug out of his skull at the sight of the blood that now stains her shirt and arms, and he reaches out for her weakly, almost collapsing onto the floor. 

 

“Shhh,” Rey croons as she catches him, “It’s not mine, I promise it’s not mine.” She helps him back to his feet and they begin to limp down the hall together.

 

When they pass the first body he tenses, but says nothing. When they pass the second he laments, softly, “ _What have I done to you?_ ”

 

He’s done nothing. She’s made _herself_ into a killer.

 

She doesn’t respond as they pass through the first two sets of doors, but the third, the third set concerns her. It’s the set that leads to the outside world, to freedom. But there’s no telling what awaits them on the other side. 

 

“Get that gun ready, Kylo.” She says, and they shoulder through. On either side of the door is a guard armed with an assault rifle, but Kylo is ready and much faster than they, and he manages to shoot them both in a matter of seconds. Two beats of gunfire. Now the entire compound will know that something is happening. Instead of heading straight towards the front gates and the turret towers she can see in the eerie orange floodlights of this place, she takes a hard left. Leading them towards a series of fences. The first is easy enough to get past. There is a large hole dug under it. She goes through first, then tugs Kylo through after her, muddying their clothes and skin. 

 

The next fence is much harder to get past, they must walk down a hundred feet of it before they find an opening, this one a slit in the links, likely cut with wire cutters. She can hear commotion now, can see lights coming on inside the building, and flashlights moving back and forth across the prison yard. They squeeze through the opening, the cut chain links tearing at their skin. 

 

The third fence, the final fence that stands between them and what appears to be dense, dark forest, is the tallest of them all. Like the other two it is topped with barbed wire, but now she doubts that they have the time to hunt for an opening. The flashlights are drawing nearer, and she can hear voices in the distance. 

 

“Kylo,” she hisses, “We’re going to have to climb.” It comes out like an apology, and she means it as one. The man can barely walk, how could he possibly climb? 

 

“Rey, I can’t.” He slumps against her, pressing his face to her hair again and kissing her goodbye, “Leave me, sweetheart. Please.” 

 

“No,” she snaps, tearing the gun from his hand and pressing his fingers to the links, “Climb!” And, much to her surprise, he does. He grips the fence tight in his free hand, then pulls his arm from around her shoulders, gripping the fence with that hand too. And then he begins to climb. She can hear him grunting and gasping the whole way up as he exacerbates his injuries. All the while she watches on helplessly as the flashlight beams come closer and closer. But she won’t permit herself to begin her climb until Kylo is safely on the other side. She levels the gun with the lights, ready to die.

 

Then she hears Kylo gasp and his clothing tear as he hits the barbed wire. Then a distinct _thump_ as he tumbles to the ground on the other side. She re-engages the safety of the gun and follows suit, scaling the fence with relative ease until she too reaches the barbed wire. 

 

“Rey,” she can hear Kylo calling for her on the other side, can see him standing up with the help of the fence and reaching for her. He’s never looked so beautiful, cut to hell by barbed wire and looking up at her from the muddy, free ground below. She presses through the wire, managing to keep her own cries of pain to a minimum, and is about to drop down to join him in freedom when a gunshot splits the night air and a bullet grazes her thigh. 

 

She shouts, alerting everyone to her whereabouts as pain lances up her thigh and into her hip, and she falls over the barbed wire hard onto the earth below. Her whole front, from the bottom of her breasts to the top of her hips is torn up and bleeding from the barbed wire. Kylo reaches for her, and in a rush of adrenalin yanks her to her feet. The shouts are clear now, too close, and they grab onto each other, supporting one another’s weight as they break for the woods. Running as fast as their shattered, bleeding bodies can carry them. 

 

It’s Kylo who starts to take them in a zigzagging pattern as the gunfire begins, dragging her back and forth over the damp ground. All while still making for the treeline. Rey wants to scream, her thigh is killing her, she can feel warmth spreading over her pant leg and dripping down to her ankle. But it doesn’t matter, all of this will be for nothing if they can’t break that tree line. So she bites down hard, gritting her teeth, and bears is at they move. It’s not fast enough, the flashlights are gaining on them, the shouting is growing louder and there is nothing she can do but push herself until her lungs burn. It’s Kylo who is struggling, the wound she had noticed on his leg making him skip more than run. Rey tugs hard, trying to run fast enough for the both of them, but it’s not enough. 

 

“Leave me!” He chokes out, gasping for breath. 

 

They are less than fifteen feet from the trees now, and Rey has never pulled harder in her life, taking nearly all of his weight onto her shoulders and she shouts back, resolute and unyielding, “Never!” 

 

Another volley of gunfire in the distance puts a fire to Rey’s feet just as they break through the trees. But now isn’t the time to stop, they can’t rest yet. They may be safe from the firearms, but the men are still coming. 

 

She leads them another hundred feet or so into the forest, all hope for a quiet escape disintegrating as they crunch over the fallen leaves. And then she takes a hard right, putting them perpendicular to their attackers, and hopefully throwing them off in the process. 

 

They move, and they move, and they move some more through the dark forest. The limbs of twisted trees, blackened in the night, reaching out and snagging in their hair, on their clothes, tearing at fresh gouges and cuts in their skin. But the flash of lights and the sound of voices grows ever distant, and eventually they are encompassed in nothing but the sound of their own feet on the leaves, and crickets chirping in the brush. They continue onward anyways. 

 

Rey is certain that they have left a trail of blood behind them. One that, come morning, will not be easily missed. Eventually they come to a stream, and Rey leads them into it. Letting the cold water soak through their boots and socks, and wash away the blood from their soles. They stay in the creek for several hundred yards, Rey hopes that it is enough to throw off anyone who might’ve been following their trail, or to confuse any dogs Hux might have at his disposal. It wouldn’t shock her if he had dogs, the psychopath. 

 

After that, they slow. Walking at a snail's pace and catching their breaths. 

 

“You’re an idiot.” Kylo sighs, relief palpable in his tone, his stature, “You should’ve left me behind.” 

 

Rey shakes her head and tightens her arm around his back, “I told you not to ask anything of me that you wouldn’t do yourself. I would never have left you there, I would have _died_ before I left you there.”

 

Kylo shakes his head, “I know.” 

 

They continue on in silence after that, focusing on maintaining their footing on the uneven ground. They keep on until sunrise, and after that. They trudge along until they find a small log cabin, the windows are intact and the door is ajar. Rey leans Kylo against a tree and helps him lower himself to the ground. 

 

“Wait here,” she says, and he catches her wrist, looking up at her with fearful, bloodshot eyes. 

 

“Be careful.” He pleads. And she nods. But she doesn't think there is much legitimacy to his concerns. The cabin looks abandoned. 

 

She pulls her handgun from her waistband and pokes her head in the front door. It is a single room, and it’s empty. No furnishings or wall decor, completely empty save for three sleeping bags laid out in a circle on the floor. Empty enough for her. 

 

Rey returns to Kylo and helps him back to his feet, again needing to support most of his weight with her own body. In the morning light she can see just how severe his leg wound is. The fabric of his cargo pants it matted to it, it oozes pus and now that she has a moment to think she swears she can smell the stench of rot rising off of it. 

 

“This might be an outpost of some sort,” she comments, “But we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. For now I want to get you down so I can take a closer look at your wounds.”

 

Rey tries to ignore the sinking feeling in her gut, she really does. But when she finally lays Kylo down across one of the sleeping bags and kneels beside his calf she wants to sob. It’s infected, terribly infected. She reaches for her satchel only to realize that she hadn’t taken any medical supplies from Doc’s office. She had been surrounded by gauze, and antibiotics, and painkillers, and a million other medical implements, but in her rush all she had grabbed were the notebooks. She slumps beside him pressing her face into her hands.

 

“It’s okay,” Kylo soothes, glancing between her and his leg and trying to supply some sort of comfort. “Help me get these pants off, I’m sure it’ll look better once we peel all of that cloth away.” He’s trying to sound optimistic, but Rey can hear the undertone of doubt that runs beneath his words. 

 

“I want you to stay down,” Rey says as he starts to work at the fly of his pants, she tugs her knife from her waistband, “I’ll cut away the lower half of the pant leg...just stay down, please.” 

 

He silently obeys, relaxing back into the nylon and closing his eyes. Rey begins by cutting a circle in the khaki material around his knee, easily pulling it down to the top of the affected area, where she stops. Then she cuts a slit from the ankle of the pants, up to the bottom of the wound, cutting away the excess until all the remains is the fabric that is matted to his skin.

 

Before she begins the process of peeling it away she quietly cuts a strip of cloth from the bottom of her own torn and bloodied shirt, and she offers it to him. He balls it up and shoves it into his mouth, biting down hard in preparation for what’s to come next. She makes sure she has a firm grip on the material and then she _pulls_. Trying to make it quick, like removing a bandaid. Kylo howls against the fabric in his mouth and Rey cringes as the piece she is working on tears in half. Part of the bloodied, sticky material coming away while the rest remains cemented in place from days of festering. 

 

But it’s enough. She’s pulled away enough to see, beneath the dirt and grime, dark pink lines working their way from the open wound up his calf to his knee. She remembers what Doc had said about systemic infection and she blanches. 

 

_Blood poisoning_. Doc had been referring to blood poisoning. Her hands fall to her sides and ball into fists. They are alone in the wilderness, with no concept of where they might be, being pursued by a group of convicted criminals, with no access to medication or aid, and Kylo has blood poisoning. That explains the high fever then. Rey collapses forward onto him, burying her face into his chest. He’s going to die. 

 

Kylo is going to die. 

 

A sob wracks her body. And Kylo jokes, morosely, “That bad, huh?”

 

“Blood poisoning.” She blubbers into his shoulder, and his face whitens and falls. 

 

“You have to leave me here sweetheart,” he says, “I’m a goner. You have to leave me here and run before they find us.” 

 

Rey sits bolt upright at his side and smacks his chest weakly, “Stop asking me to leave you!” She cries, “I won’t! I can’t do it!”

 

“Rey--”

 

“Stop!” She snaps, taking his face in her hands and leaning over him. She doesn’t want to hear him beg anymore, doesn’t want to listen to him assume that she _doesn’t need him_. “I understand now Kylo Ren, I understand why I could never leave you, even when you had pissed me off, and belittled me, and called me names. I’m in love with you! The same way you’re in love with me, it’s fucked up, and possessive, and wrong in so many ways...but I love you.” Her voice tapers off at the end as fresh tears begin their trek down her face, over her cheeks, falling down and peppering his own. 

 

His dark eye lashes flutter, and then he brings his hands up, framing her face with them, and pulling her down into a deep, longing kiss. He pulls her flush to his body as he ravishes her lips with fevered mouth and tongue as he reaches and pushes her leggings down her thighs and she fumbles with his fly. She tugs her ruined shirt over her head, breaking the kiss briefly, only to return to it with fervor, desperate to be close to him, to feel him in her heart, her bones. She ignores the sting of her fresh wounds and embraces him wholly.

 

One last time, she thinks as she sobs into his mouth. _One last time._

 

He fits so perfectly inside of her that she’s amazed she ever thought she could be without him. She rocks gently against him, his hands steadying her hips as they work in tandem. She realizes, when she finally gains the courage to look down and into those beautiful dark eyes, that he’s crying too. Looking up at her with such love, such infatuation and simultaneous sadness as they make love. It’s so perfect, this rhythm they create together. The roll of her hips against his own, her soft mewls, his grunts. She wishes she could have this every night for the rest of her life.

 

They crest together, on the dirty floor of an abandoned cabin. Crying out for one another and each grasping tightly at the other. 

 

Rey collapses onto his chest, crying despite the aftershocks of her orgasm still singing in her body, between her thighs where he’s still buried within her. 

 

“I love you,” she chokes into his damp skin, “I love you so much.” 

 

He returns the sentiment with gentle kisses and caresses across her back, her shoulders, over her face. He nuzzles into her crown, and she can feel when his eyes flutter shut from the way his lashes stir her hair. 

 

Rey sobs and wonders if she’ll ever hear his voice again, she wonders if this sleep will be his last.

 

She too closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was massive! Remember how I said there wouldn't be an update this week? Well, I'm sick in bed and cranked this one out early. But that means there won't be an update this weekend, just to be clear. 
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who has stuck with me this whole time! All of the kind words and encouragement I've received mean more to me than I could possibly express. <3 I'll see you all next update! (Hopefully in a week or so)


	13. Journal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for suicidal ideation in this chapter.

Rey doesn't sleep. Once an indiscriminate amount of time has passed and golden sunlight, broken by the foliage above, has begun to paint the floor beneath the windows, she sits up and pulls her tattered shirt and leggings back on. The shirt is stiff with blood, but it covers the damage the barbed wire had done to her abdomen. Some of the gouges are deep, but almost all of them have stopped bleeding. She's likely to die, if these wounds become infected, if they can't find help--she glances at Kylo and knows that they won't be the ones looking--help needs to find them, or they’re done for.

 

There is a snap of a tree branch outside, followed by a low moan, and then her ears hone in on a steadily increasing shuffling through the leaves and pine needles that coat the forest floor. A horde. She should've known that a horde would detect all of the ruckus from the night before, the gunfire, the shouts. Her eyes fly to the door, which she had thankfully shut behind them. She sneaks across the hard floor on her hands and knees, locking it before scampering back to Kylo. There are no curtains on the windows, so she unzips one of the sleeping bags and drapes it over their bodies, so any creature that looks in will only see a lump on the floor. She has been led to believe that they are blind, that they operate entirely on their sense of hearing, but Kylo had mentioned once that light could draw them from dormancy. Perhaps that is all that they can see with those dead gray eyes; light and shadow. That had been her some odd days ago, unable to see anything but lights and darks. She had been like them, in a finite sense, but like them all the same.

 

Once she is settled, Rey lifts Kylo’s head into her lap and runs her fingers through his hair, working out the dried blood from his torture, and the dead leaves from their flight. He doesn't so much as stir, not even when her fingers catch and she pulls them free. He's too far gone. She doubts he'll wake again. 

 

For now she chooses to ignore that harsh reality, the brevity of the situation, and she bides her time playing with his hair, trying not to startle at every noise from the outside as the cabin is engulfed in a river of the dead. But there is her satchel, stolen from Doc and filled with notebooks rather than life saving medical supplies. Doc had mentioned not being able to treat a systemic infection, so even if she had remembered to gather antibiotics, she would only have bought Kylo time at best. Precious little time. 

 

She chooses not to linger on that mistake, she’s gone through too much in the past twenty four hours to beat herself up over it. Rather it’s the current contents of that bag that keep turning her attention from Kylo. The journal is in that bag, the one she had noticed in her few first nights--conscious nights, that is--with him. The one he had written in so fervently, the one that he had intentionally kept hidden from her. Rey is certain now that it holds the answer to every impossible question she has asked over these last two weeks, maybe more, time is lost to her. 

 

She knows that she shouldn’t read it, not now, not here while Kylo dies in her arms; but she is owed this. After everything that she has gone through for this man, and the secrets about her past that she had revealed to him, she deserves this much. 

 

Rey shifts a bit under the sleeping bag, and reaches for her satchel as quietly as she can. She shuffles from one spiral notebook to the next, the metal wire catching against the wounded, raw flesh of her hand. _Damn that barbed wire_. It’s tucked on the far side, between the last notebook and the fabric of the bag. Bound in canvas and small in comparison to the others, she doesn’t have to look at it to know she has the right one. She pulls it from the bag, opens it, and begins to read the surprisingly neat scrawl of Kylo’s hand. 

 

_July 15th_  
_Some weird shit is happening._  
_They called us out of Calcutta, the whole unit. They flew us out in a C-130 and maybe an hour later we landed in Bangladesh. From there they took us by truck, maybe three hours from where we landed, to a remote village. The kind you see on TV, with shitty shacks for houses, where everyone is poor and hungry. But this one was on fire, or it had been. Now it was mostly just smoke and cinder. Rodriguez nearly threw up as soon as we got out of the truck, the whole place smelled like burnt flesh. The Lieutenant didn’t seem surprised, he spoke to one of the locals while the rest of us fanned out, sweeping the area. I’ll never forget what we found, I’ve never seen anything so terrible in my life. First there were some tents set up, with some people in hazmat suits inside. I don’t know what they were doing, but I didn’t see any patients. After that we came to a pile of bodies, burned black. It seemed like they hadn’t been discriminatory in who they chose to burn, there were children, and women, and men. Burned so badly we couldn’t tell what had been wrong with them, why someone would choose to do this. Some people in hazmat suits shooed us off pretty quick though, like we had seen something we weren’t supposed to. After that, we loaded up a couple of crates into one of the trucks, and then we left. Some of the scientists came with us, said that they were from the CDC, but they wouldn’t tell us anything else._  
_Whatever happened in that village, I get the feeling that it was more than just a flu outbreak. Maybe something worse? Something dangerous? Is ebola a thing over here? Smallpox come back? I don’t know. But I don’t fucking like it._  
_We’re beginning transit back to the US tomorrow. It’s unexpected, but not unwelcome. I miss home, I want to see Fort Jackson again, crack open a cold beer with my boys and have a good, real American cheeseburger._

 

_July 16th_  
_We’re in the plane right now, on our way home. We’re all buckled into the cargo hold, with those crates from the village. I noticed that they have holes bored into them, just big enough to put a finger through. Air holes maybe? Are we hauling animals? If they’re carrying whatever called for that village to be burned I feel like there should be a better fucking protocol than this. You can't just strap them down in the cargo hold of a plane. Maybe I’m overthinking it._  
_We’re going to make a stop in Johannesburg to refuel tonight. From there it’s roughly 18 hours home. I can’t wait_. 

 

_July 18th_  
_We made it. We made it but Williams was a fucking idiot and stuck his finger into one of those fucking crates. It happened last night, with maybe five hours left of flight time. We had heard some noises coming from inside, and were fucking around, kicking the crate and shit. Cruel, I know. But we’d been in the air for thirteen hours, what else are a group of twenty bored guys supposed to do? But Williams took it too far, he stuck his finger into one of the air holes, and whatever was inside bit him. He yelled and jumped back, and his finger was bloody and torn up. We wrapped it in a towel and tried to pretend that nothing had happened. But we all shut up and left the crates alone after that. He seems fine, for now. But it’s only been twelve hours. None of the CDC people traveling with us have noticed the wound yet, he has it wrapped up. We don’t know where we are, somewhere south probably, it’s hot as hell and humid too, but the compound we’re at is in the woods and unmarked._  
_I have a terrible feeling about this._

 

_July 19th_  
_Williams had a seizure about two hours ago, at zero eight-hundred hours. We were just hanging out in the barracks they have set up for us, playing cards and being idiots, when his eyes rolled back and he hit the floor. His mouth was foaming and his nose started to bleed. Kestrel went for help and when he came back he had a full detail of those fucking coats with him, that’s what we call the scientists now, coats. They hoisted Williams up onto a gurney and wheeled him away. It’s been two hours, and we’ve heard nothing._

 

_July 20th_  
_It’s been quiet on our end. No news about Williams._

 

_July 22nd_  
_They’re moving us to the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, the whole operation. There we will be briefed on our new assignment._  
_Nothing on Williams. The Lieutenant said to let it go, but he was one of us. We leave no man behind._

 

 _July 24th_  
_Zombies, we’re dealing with fucking zombies. They brought us to the CDC, took us to some underground lab, sat us down, and then wheeled out this big, Plexiglas case. Inside was Williams. Or what was once Williams. His skin was gray, and his eyes were too. He had these blue black veins bulging from his skin. He was hissing and spitting and clawing at the glass with bloody fingers. They were right when they told us that our brother is gone. That thing was just an animal._  
_Our new job is essentially just glorified security shit. We patrol this underground bunker they have set up, scan IDs, and shoot anyone who doesn’t belong. Simple enough. We start tomorrow,_  
_22:00_  
_I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about all of those villagers, stacked one on top of another and burned. They had become what Williams is now. They were monsters. Someday they’ll burn him too. I feel sick._

 

_July 25th_  
_I met the lead scientist on this unit. His name is Snoke. He’s old, tall and thin, and I don’t like him. He’s...I don’t know...sleazy? Is that the word? He thinks all of this is funny, the sick bastard. He wants me and Rodriguez to be his personal detail, by his side at all times in case something goes wrong, in case one of those things gets out._  
_He keeps them behind a glass wall in his lab, three Bangladeshis and Williams. They all look the same to me now, gray skinned, dead eyed. Snoke says he’s preparing to run some tests on them, to see how they react to different stimuli. He should just kill them._

 

 _July 27th_  
_I’ve learned some things in the last two days from being around Snoke. He talks like we’re not here, like he doesn’t care if we overhear sensitive information. He’s usually just dictating reports to his assistant, a big blonde lady named Phasma._  
_This is what I’ve got so far:_  
_The virus is a form of rabies, so it only spreads through saliva._  
_They noted this form before in animals in the wild, but it had never made the jump to_  
humans before  
_Note; There was a subtle implication that it might be weaponized, altered by scientists to make the species jump_  
_It takes roughly twenty four hours for symptoms to manifest, but Snoke thinks it’s mutating and speeding up._  
_How does he know that it’s mutating? There are still only four monsters behind that glass. Snoke is way too giddy about this shit. It’s like he enjoys it. He fucking sick, and if I were in charge I wouldn’t let this man anywhere near a level four laboratory. But the Lieutenant says he’s a genius--so does everyone else for that matter--that if anyone can cure this shit, it’s him. I don’t trust him. I think he’s crazy._  
_23:00_  
_Kestrel never came back from his evening rounds. The Lieutenant doesn’t seem to care._  
_What if it’s Snoke?_

 

_July 30th_  
_Five more men have gone missing. Lieutenant Matthews says that they’ve all been dismissed from their posts, sent back to the outside. He’s lying. That fucking traitor is lying. Snoke is using us as test subjects, that has to be it. They’re sending us like pigs to the slaughter. Our lives mean nothing to them_  
_But there’s still only four of those fucking animals behind that wall. Wait, no, there’s three now. Snoke did something with Williams, he’s gone now, and Snoke won’t answer my fucking questions._  
_21:00_  
_Three more men gone. “Dismissed”. I swear I can hear their voices, whispering in my ear, telling me the truth, what I’ve suspected since Kestrel disappeared. Snoke has taken them and made them into monsters. More of my brothers taken from me. Gone._  
_23:00_  
_I broke into Snoke’s lab and managed to get into his computer. I’m right. I’m fucking right. He’s been using us as lab rats, because we are ‘exemplary representations of the human body’. What’s worse is that they knew, command knew that this is what he intended to do and they sent us here anyway, they sent us all to become monsters._  
_Note; I finished the documents, no mention of William’s anywhere after the 28th._  
_23:36_  
_I told them, I told them all and none of them believed me, they think I’m crazy. I attacked them. I didn’t want to, but Matthews ordered them to detain me, to lock me up. They would have handed me over to Snoke and he would’ve turned me into one of those fucking animals. I shot them. They weren’t expecting it, they thought I would go quietly and calmly, but I shot them all. I killed my brothers. Most of them were unarmed, and I murdered them._  
_The walls here are thick, very thick. Maybe no one heard._

 

Rey has to set down the journal for a moment to catch her breath. Her heart is racing, and she can feel the wetness of tears pooling in her eyes. He’s a murderer. Kylo is a murderer. How many men had he killed? It doesn’t specify. She has a sinking feeling that she knows what will come next, that Kylo’s crimes extend far beyond murder. 

 

She reads on.

 

_July 31st_  
_I killed Snoke, and his team of coats too. Every last one of them. I watched them get down on their knees and plead for their lives. They would tell me that they had families, that they were still in school, that they weren’t ready to die, but I did it anyways. Most of them let me, they were scared of the rifle, and they submitted. It was easy enough, just one shot to the back of the head and it was over._  
_Snoke was a different story. I went for him first, because his lab is separate from the main one, and I didn’t want him to run if he heard the gunfire or screaming. Before I splattered his brains across the walls, he admitted to me everything that had been in those files, the truth of it all. But nothing about Williams, not even when I offered him mercy in exchange for information._  
_It’s true. My government has betrayed me. My people have betrayed me._  
_That was the moment I chose to kill all of the others too, they were complicit. They had allowed this to happen and they would pay. And they did._

 

_August 1st_  
_I gathered some supplies, and then I dumped as much paper across the floor as I could before I set it on fire. Then I fled, well before it had spread. I just walked out the front doors and didn’t look back. But something is wrong. Somehow the virus is out, it’s in the city. There are groups of them wandering like packs of wild dogs. The Army has been called in. It’s fucking insane._  
_I should be helping them, using my own training to evacuate the city, or join in the fighting. But I won’t. I owe them nothing. They can all seize and die like the animals they are._  
_I’m writing this late, in the upstairs of an abandoned repair garage I found. The virus hasn’t even reached this part of the city yet, but people know when death is on their doorstep. It’s spreading quickly, very quickly. Part of me suspects that Snoke did this, that somehow he is behind all of this, but none of his notes revealed anything of that nature. I can only hypothesize._  
_Sitting up here, alone, I realized something. I’ve damned us all. With the fire departments either completely disbanded, or overrun, or out on constant calls, there was no one to stop the fire. The whole complex burned. The CDC, and all of the research that used to lie within, is gone. Part of me is glad, I want to watch it all burn down, for what it’s done to me. But innocents will be lost in the chaos too...if anyone is really innocent._  
_I’ll detail what I learned about the virus from Snoke here. In case it ever will become relevant again._

 

From there Kylo lists off many of the things he had already told Rey or written in the journal, but there is also some new information. It’s a mutated form of rabies, likely weaponized by the United States Government. It spreads only through saliva. Victims become violent, and show acute hydrophobia. They enter a dormant state after long periods of time without sensing movement, light, or sound, in which their metabolisms stop almost entirely, allowing them to survive significant periods of time without sustenance. Mental functions degenerate rapidly just one day after being bitten, though that time is diminished in later mutations of the virus. 

 

Rey brushes her thumb gently over the ink. His handwriting has become more and more erratic from each day to the next. And she isn’t even a full month into it. In seventeen days Kylo had begun to lose his mind. It makes sense that he would, people he considered to be his brothers, taken from him and offered up as test subjects to a lunatic. 

 

But he’s right. He’d damned them all in the actions he took at the CDC. 

 

There is an eleven day time jump to the next entry. 

 

_August 12th_  
_The city is lost. Seven days ago I snuck into one of the Army field tents and stole some supplies. On my way out I heard an emergency radio. It has spread all the way to Texas, Ohio, and Maine. It’s moving fast. California has fortified its border apparently, and that’s where the army plans to fall back to soon. They’re leaving the rest of the country to burn. Why doesn’t that surprise me?_  
_I’ll leave for California soon, then. Safest place to be._

 

_August 15th_  
_They’re gone. The military has pulled out. I watched them drive by last night, convoy after convoy, headed west._  
_I’ll wait for the hordes to thin before I go. If they will thin, that is. Snoke’s words make me think they’ll be around for a while. Maybe I should just make a run for it._

 

_August 20th_  
_Four groups of survivors. I’ve met four in the last five days. The first two I warned from the city. They didn’t listen. After that I gave up, there’s no point. These people are convinced that the CDC is a safe haven. That they’ll find shelter there. The idiots are oblivious to the lack of any military presence in the area. Shouldn’t that be enough to show them that the city is done for, that there’s no one left?_  
_Whatever. Let them all be eaten alive. I don’t fucking care._

 

_August 23rd_  
_This is all my fault. I killed all of them._

 

_August 27th_  
_I have gathered all the supplies I can. I plan to leave next week. I want to put some weight back on with these field rations I found. I’ve lost close to fifteen pounds._

 

_August 29th_  
_Phasma wasn’t with Snoke or the other coats when I shot the place up. She could still be alive out there somewhere, if the hordes didn’t take her._  
_I should feel relieved, but I just wish I’d killed her too._

 

_September 2nd_  
_I’m going out for one final sweep of the area tomorrow before I leave. I want to make sure I haven’t missed any good shit._

 

_September 3rd_  
_There was a girl collapsed on the side of the road. A couple of fucking freaks were poking around her. I almost left her, but she was different from all of the others, she was helpless. I killed the zombies, and when I got closer I saw she wasn’t a kid like I’d thought. She was a young woman, a small one. Too thin, malnourished. I could tell even with all the dirt on her that she has a pretty face. Her foot was all fucked up. She had it wrapped in a bandage, but it was soaked through with pus and blood._  
_When I tried to lift her up she woke up, and she begged me to kill her. Even as dehydrated as she must have been, laying out in the Georgia sun, she managed to cry. Then she passed out again._

 

Rey pauses, remembering her first conversation with Kylo, in which he had told her that she had been crying when he found her. But he had made it sound as if she had been crying for help, crying so that someone might find her and she might live. He had lied. The scene plays out again in her mind, each word weighing heavily on her already burdened spirit.

 

_“Maybe I wanted to die you fucking prick! You don’t know me! You don’t know why I was out there!”_

 

_“I doubt it. You were crying when I found you. Quite the feat for someone who was as dehydrated as you were.”_

 

How smug he had looked as he lied to her. How easily she had believed him. 

 

She reads on in the same entry. 

 

_I brought her back to the garage and did what I could for her foot. It’s bad, but I managed to make her swallow some oral antibiotics and applied a salve. I’d put her chances at fifty-fifty._

 

_September 5th_  
_She still hasn’t woken. Every once in awhile she opens her eyes and screams, calls out for people who I don’t know. Jess, Poe, and Finn. It’s then that I make her drink. Her foot is already starting to look better. The swelling has gone down and it’s not as red as it was._  
_I hope she wakes soon. I want to take her with me. I hope she isn’t too caught up on the idea of going into Atlanta._

 

_September 6th_  
_I dreamt about her last night._  
_I’m not alone anymore_

 

Rey’s hands are beginning to shake. He was obsessed with her from the start. He had no deep sadistic ulterior motive in his taking her with him, besides that of his own infatuation. 

 

_September 7th_  
_She woke up today. Her name is Rey, and she’s a spitfire thing. Beautiful in her anger. She’s going to stay with me._

 

_September 8th_  
_We’re leaving tomorrow. I’ll finish packing up in the morning. Rey is hesitant about coming with me, smart not to trust a stranger. I wouldn’t hurt her, I want to keep her safe. She’s a victim in all of this, just like I am._

 

That he thinks himself a victim in all of this chaos, after everything he had done, Rey finds that disturbing. In the beginning he might have been, when he was ushered into what was essentially a slaughter house to wait for his turn, but after that? No. He had murdered their only hope. 

 

_September 12th_  
_We’ve gone through a lot over the past four days. We nearly died twice; once at a gas station and once at a Walmart. We made it into Mississippi and found a small house that we’re sheltering in._  
_She’s asleep beside me right now. She let me fuck her, practically begged me to. She didn’t tell me that she was a virgin. I wish she had. I would’ve been so much better, I would’ve shown her just how good I am, how I can take care of her. She’s twenty, a decade younger than me. I thought she was older than that, she seemed like she was. But it doesn’t matter, she’s mine now._  
_She’s using sex to numb the pain of what she’s been through. If that’s what she needs, I’m happy to oblige. But I will make her love me, I’ll make her see how much I love her. That I would do anything for her, I’d burn down this whole fucking world if it pleased her._  
_There’s also the matter of the bodies in the garage. I’ll take care of them tomorrow. She was a good mother, she did whatever it took to keep her children from becoming beasts._  
_I don’t want Rey to see them. She’s too fragile right now._

 

That’s where it stops. His writings end. The script had become more and more erratic as she had read, lending itself to show his loss of sanity. Rey knows what happened after that, knows that the next morning she had revealed the depth of her loneliness to him, and then that night they had made love for the first time. He probably hadn’t had the time to write anymore, between the sex and the birth control hunt. And then they had been captured and his journal had been taken from him. 

 

Rey doesn’t understand why she’s shaking. She had suspected the depth of his obsession with her, had suspected the severity of his crimes, but to have it confirmed in his own words? It’s almost too much. Kylo had single handedly damned the human race to be devoured by a zombie plague. 

 

The sounds from outside have stopped. The horde has passed. Rey gently removes Kylo’s head from her lap and stands, letting the journal drop to the floor. All of her wounds, new and old, scream for her to sit, to rest. But she can’t, she needs to pace the length of this cabin and think. 

 

She should leave him. He’s a monster. He has killed more people than any of the zombies they’ve encountered ever have. He’d picked her up off of the side of the road and kept her alive against her wishes, just so he could make her fall in love with him. He has left the world in shambles. 

 

But she loves him. She loves him just as deeply as he loves her, just as obsessively. She’s just as broken as he is, just as damaged. Had she been in his situation, she might’ve done the same thing. She had left her friends behind, left them to be eaten alive because they had decided to listen to the emergency radio message and go to a CDC field hospital. Rey knows that she’s just as evil as Kylo for making that decision, just as morally dubious and deplorable. 

 

She could be pregnant by him, she still doesn’t know. Though all the trauma she has sustained over the previous days leads her to believe that she isn’t, at least not anymore.

 

Rey kneels beside him on the sleeping bag, letting her fingers pass over the planes of his face, his too full lips, his large ears. He’s going to die. They’ve been here for hours and he hasn’t stirred since he last closed his eyes. He feels even warmer than before, and the thin sheen of sweat over his skin does nothing to negate it. Kylo is going to die.

 

And he probably deserves to, after all that he has done. 

 

She can feel the weight of the handgun at her hip. 

 

Rey decides that she’ll sit here with him, she whisper to him that she loves him more than anything on the off chance that he can hear her, and she’ll rock him into death. And once he’s gone, once breath no longer passes through those beautiful lips, and his eyes no longer flicker behind pale, heavy lids, she’ll put that gun to her head and pull the trigger. 

 

She can’t be alone again. She can’t live with the guilt of what she’s done without him by her side. Kylo is the only one who understands, the only one left who she loves, the only one who has seen and shared the horrors of this journey they’ve embarked on. 

 

Rey presses the journal back into her satchel and lays down beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this took forever. I'm really sorry. 
> 
> This was very hard to write because of Kylo's journal. Switching from third person limited to first person was really difficult, and then I was also switching from Rey to Kylo, which proved to be even more of a challenge. I hope it turned out alright?
> 
> I would also like to note that the formatting of Kylo's journal is intentionally odd. It's meant to feel cramped and rushed, like the words on the page of a diary might be. (formatting this nearly killed me)
> 
> Thanks everyone so much for reading! It's 1 in the morning on a Wednesday, off to bed with me.


	14. Compound

Rey doesn't sleep, she lays on the floor, her head pillowed on Kylo's chest, and listens to his quickening heartbeat. His breath has grown more shallow, quick and raspy, the end is near. She squeezes her fingers around the handgun, contemplating what will come next.

 

Rey doesn't know if there is a God, but she doesn't want to meet the being who has brought this fate upon them. Maybe they deserve it.

 

She imagines death as it is so often pictured, a wraith, looming outside the window, its skeletal face cast in shadow by a dark shroud. It presses thin, knotted fingers to the glass, letting its sharp nails run over it, emitting a high pitched squeal. Hot breath steams the window pane. Rey watches as it steps away with wretched grace, a foul black haze following behind it. 

 

There is a hard slam on the door, and Rey thinks it quite fitting that this would be how they go. She’s hallucinating, she knows it, but she suspects that the noise is real, and that the spectre at the window had been the instrument of their doom, a zombie, or perhaps one of Hux’s men. 

 

The door bursts open, and through falls a man. His skin olive in tone, his short hair dark and curly. He regains his balance and straightens himself up, taking a cursory glance of the room before his eyes befall Rey. She recognizes them, the brown warmth that lies behind those irises. Poe. Poe Dameron has risen from the death and come to punish her for all that she has done. A wraith indeed.

 

“Poe?” Her voice is pathetic and small. She can't look away from him. 

 

He stands, dumbstruck for a moment, until another head pokes in the door behind him. A woman with black hair--pulled tight in a bun--and lively dark eyes waltzes in. “Holy shit.” She says, alarmed by the sight of the two of them, covered in dirt and blood and grime, “Who are you?” 

 

She rushes to Rey’s side and peels the sleeping bag off of the two of them. Her eyes widen when they befall Kylo's leg. “We need to get them out of here, Poe. He’s got blood poisoning.” She's already reaching to help Rey to her feet, “The mission can wait. Can you stand?” 

 

“Yes.” Rey says, and she pushes herself up shakily. She catches onto the woman's shoulder to gain her balance. Her ankle throbs but she ignores it, prioritizing the pain to the back of her mind. As Poe and the woman lift Kylo up between their bodies, throwing an arm over each shoulder--and impressive feat for such a small woman--Rey grabs her messenger bag and tucks it in close to her side. They can't see what she has stashed within, no one can. 

 

“Follow us.” The woman says, leading them out of the cabin, “We have a truck waiting not far from here, we’ll get you to safety.”

 

The trek is slow, and though the woman claims it only to be a mile worth of walking, it feels likes tens of them. Rey is exhausted, ready to give up, if not for the tiny glimmer of hope that now sparks within her; the hope that Kylo might live. It is a dangerous hope, one that would make his loss all the more painful were that hope to flounder.

 

“I'm Rose,” she says when Rey is beginning to fall behind, “And this is--”

 

“She knows me.” Poe says. And he sounds like he's seen a ghost. 

 

Rey wonders if he hates her, if he is so silent because he has once again seen the face of a betrayer, someone he had trusted, someone who abandoned him. 

 

Rose senses the tension between the two of them and doesn't push the subject any further. For which Rey is grateful. She doesn't think she can handle anymore at the moment. Not with Kylo like he is. 

 

“My name is Rey.” She manages. 

 

“And who is this?” Rose gestures her head towards Kylo as they drag him through the forest, his foot occasionally catching on a root or a stone. He still hasn't woken, his breath is still shallow, skin still sallow and damp with sweat.

 

“Kylo.” Rey can't manage any explanation beyond that, she can feel the lump rising in her throat, the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes with just the mention of his name. 

 

The handgun still weighs heavily at her hip. 

 

When they reach the truck Rey nearly collapses. Waiting there for them, sitting with his legs hanging out of the back seat, is Finn. But unlike Poe who had been uncertain, quiet and cold, Finn, after a moment of utter shock, leaps from the truck and pulls her into a tight embrace. 

 

“Rey!” He laughs, “Oh thank God, Rey.” 

 

The tears come unbidden now, uncontrollable. Rey grips his jacket in tight fistfuls and buries her face in his chest, sobbing.

 

“It's okay,” Finn soothes, “It’s okay.” 

 

. _No, it’s not okay_. Rey pulls away, sniffling, “I’m so sorry.” She chokes. 

 

Finn looks surprised and confused, he holds her at an arm's length, looking intensely into her eyes, trying to discern the meaning behind her apology. “I--”

 

“Finn!” Rose calls, “We need a hand! This guy is heavy.” 

 

Rey looks over Finn’s shoulder to see Poe and Rose attempting to load Kylo into the back seat of the truck without disturbing his leg. They both rush over to help, Rey hopping inside and guiding his shoulders as the other three maneuver him as best they can. 

 

Eventually they manage to lay him across the back seat, his head in Rey’s lap. The door closes, and the other three begin to bicker about something inconsequential outside. 

 

Kylo's eyes flicker behind their lids and then they open, glazed and unfocused. Rey pushes a stray piece of hair away from his sweat dampened forehead and his eyes flit to her, they lock with her own and then focus, begging the question of where they are, of what is happening, why her eyes are red rimmed from crying. She leans down and presses a kiss to his forehead, “It’s okay,” she whispers against his skin, “We’re going to be okay.” 

 

It is a dangerous thing, hope. 

 

His eyes slide closed again, just as Finn hops into the bed of the truck, an assault rifle slung across his chest, and Poe and Rose climb into the front. His breath is still shallow, but it's even. 

 

“Rey.” Poe breaths as Rose puts the truck into gear and they pull away from the side of the road. “I--I can't believe you’re alive.” 

 

Rey isn't sure how to answer, how to apologize for what she had done. She just meets his eyes in the rearview mirror. They are still so kind and understanding, not an ounce of resentment occupies their depths, just pure relief. 

 

“How did you survive? Who is he?” Poe begins to ask questions, questions she isn't ready to answer yet. Not until she knows where they are going, the sort of people they are. Not until she has her story straight, and that is something she will need to discuss with Kylo, for consistency’s sake. The truth will get him killed, she's sure of it. And his death isn't an option. If he somehow survives this ordeal she won't risk losing him again, to anyone or anything. 

 

“Cut it out.” Rose cuts in, saving Rey from having to explain herself. “Look at them! They’re wounded and dirty and exhausted. No hard questions for now.” 

 

“Okay,” Poe concedes reluctantly, “How about an easy question. What's his name?” He indicates towards Kylo. The former professor looks suspiciously at the way she cradles Kylo’s head in her lap, the way her fingers absentmindedly move through his hair. She wonders if he saw her kiss his forehead.

 

Rey considers it for a moment, wondering if it's okay to reveal. She doubts that just his first name, one he had chosen for himself according to Hux, could do any harm. “Kylo.” 

 

“Any last name?” He prods.

 

“No,” she lies, “...I don't know.” 

 

Poe doesn't look convinced, and Rey tenses under his scrutiny, “Really? You look close…”

 

His eyes in the mirror drop back to where her fingers are laced into his hair, the way she caresses his shoulder. Rey looks down and away, unable to think of an excuse, not wanting to further lie to this man she had thought dead. 

 

“Poe.” Rose snaps. The message is clear. _Shut up._

 

They ride in silence for a time after that. Rey doesn't know what to make of this sudden rescue, she doesn't know where they’re going, or what will happen to them, but she has a hunch it may have something to do with “The Farm” that Biggs and Wedge had mentioned. Perhaps that is where they’re going. 

 

It's half an hour before they reach a long gravel driveway, leading up and over a hill. Once they climb that they come to a large wooden gate built across the drive, with guard towers standing tall on either side of it. Finn exchanges a few words with one of the armed guards, and then the gate opens, revealing what can only be described as a shanty town inside. 

 

As far as Rey can see there are small make shift houses and lean-tos dotting the fields. Fields, this truly is, or was, a farm. The whole massive area seems to be walled in with wood, each log sharpened at the top into threatening points, and behind that massive wooden fence is another chain-link one, topped in barbed wire. On the far end of the walled area stands a large farmhouse, and several hundred yards away from that is an ancient red barn. There are several fields that look like they have been recently reaped of their bounty, whatever that may have been. 

 

They stay in the car, and Rose takes them up the drive, through the shanty town, and parks them in front of the house. It's Victorian styled, with a half rotunda, pillars and a large porch. Mounted atop one of the many peaks of its roof are a radio antenna and a large satellite dish, they stand starkly against the traditional beauty of the house. Finn jumps out and runs up to the front door, and is quickly welcomed inside. 

 

“He’s getting a stretcher,” Rose explains, like they’ve done this before. “He’ll be back out in a minute with help.” 

 

A moment later several people follow Finn back out the front door. A stretcher between them. The back door is opened and Kylo is quickly pulled from her lap. She doesn't struggle to hold onto him, rather she climbs out after him and follows as they place him on the gurney, then follows further as they wheel him up a walkway and lift him up the front steps. It's there at the door that she is stopped by an armed guard as Poe and Finn slip past. 

 

“Who are you?” He asks, fingers twitching on the gun slung across his chest. 

 

“I'm with him.” Rey explains, struggling to maintain her calm as Kylo is wheeled around a corner and out of her sight. She attempts to shoulder past the man, but he stops her by pressing the side of his weapon into her chest. She yelps as the torn skin of her abdomen is disturbed.

 

The guard’s eyes narrow, and he snarls, “ _Who_ are you?” 

 

Rey freezes, sensing the imminent danger she has now placed herself in. She won't have time to reach the gun at her hip before he shoots her. 

 

“Hey!” Rose rushes up the stairs behind them, she pushes the guard’s weapon down. “Stop that! She's okay, she's with me.” 

 

The guard's eyes pass over the two of them, scrutinizing them, before he steps aside and motions for them to pass. 

 

“Thank you.” Rose says, not unkindly. And she leads Rey through the halls. 

 

Peering into room after room it quickly becomes apparent to Rey that this had once functioned as a field hospital. Cots and mats fill the otherwise empty rooms, some still bloodstained. 

 

Rose notices what has caught Rey’s attention. “After the outbreak first reached here this house was transitioned into a field hospital. We have an actual doctor. But now, most of the people who were going to recover have recovered. And as for the rest...well, we gave them good burials just outside the wall. Now it's mostly empty, save for when we come across injured travelers, like you and Kylo.” 

 

Rey just nods her acknowledgement, wondering, but not caring enough to actually ask how often it is that they come across ‘travelers’. That's hardly the word for it, refugees seems more appropriate. 

 

They come to a set of slatted double doors, and Rose pauses to explain to Rey exactly what is about to happen. “I’m taking you in to meet the woman in charge of this entire operation. Her name is Leia Organa, call her Mrs. Organa though, unless she states otherwise. Tell her the truth, Rey,” Rose warns, probably having sensed Rey’s hesitation in the truck beforehand, “She’s very good at sussing out lies. She’s the one who ultimately decides whether you stay or you go.”

 

Rey just nods, and gulps around the lump in her throat. Leia Organa. Leia was the name Hux had mentioned at the prison. The woman Kylo had hinted to be his mother. 

 

Rose slides the doors open and a woman turns from a large set of bay windows on the far wall. Her hair is gray and worn back in a simple bun, her clothes are just as simple; jeans and a light jacket. Her eyebrows raise in concern when she takes in Rey’s ragged appearance. 

 

“Rose, I saw you coming in. I take it you forewent the mission in favor of helping this traveler?” Leia asks, coming around her desk to stand in front of them. 

 

“Yes,” Rose nods, standing up a bit straighter, “This is Rey. We found her and her companion in the reconnaissance cabin, the one about four miles out from Hux’s compound. The man has blood poisoning, they rushed him to Doctor Kalonia as soon as we arrived.” 

 

Leia nods and turns to Rey, “A grave prognosis, but take heart, Doctor Kalonia is the best of the best, and we have the supplies here to treat such an infection.” Rey tries to smile, she really does, but after all that she has endured this tiny bit of kindness and reassurance does nothing for her. 

 

“Thank you.” She manages. 

 

Leia waves dismissively to Rose who vacates the room without so much as a glance back at Rey. The older woman then motions to one of the leather chairs situated in front of her heavy wooden desk, an invitation that Rey gladly accepts, slumping into the chair and wincing as her abdomen is again disturbed. She feels fresh blood running down her front, she has torn one of her new wounds open. 

 

Leia seems to take notice of her discomfort, and comes to kneel in front of her. Rey doesn’t protest as the woman gently lifts her blood stained and stiffened shirt up her stomach to examine her injuries. Her lined forehead creases further and she looks up into Rey’s eyes with concern filling her own dark ones. _Kylo’s eyes._ “Why didn’t they take you for treatment immediately?” 

 

Rey whimpers as Leia tugs a handkerchief from her back pocket and presses it to the freshly opened wound, “I didn’t tell them that I was hurt.” Rey takes the handkerchief in her own hand and maintains the pressure the older woman had begun to apply.

 

Leia rolls her eyes and stands, offering Rey a hand. “It’s quite apparent upon looking at you. Come on, I’ll take you to be patched up, then we’ll talk.” 

 

That talk is something Rey desperately wants to avoid. She has no story planned out, no explanation beyond the truth which she cannot reveal.

 

Rey takes the hand, finding the woman’s skin soft and warm, and lets Leia lead her through the halls of the house. She notes the lack of decor as they go and wonders if it had always been this way, or if the woman had simply rid herself of all sentimental objects when she opened her home to the displaced. 

 

“You’re limping.” Leia comments as they come to a closed door. Behind it several muffled voices can be heard.

 

Leia knocks twice and a feminine voice calls out from within, “Who is it?”

 

“It’s your boss,” she jests, “And I have another patient for you.” 

 

There is some shuffling and then the door creaks open. In the threshold stands a kind looking woman who appears to be about the same age as Leia. She smiles and looks Rey over. This must be Doctor Kalonia, and Kylo must be resting just beyond where her body blocks the door frame. It seems almost intentional, the way she has her arms spread, blocking their view. 

 

“Mrs. Organa,” she gives a tight lipped smile, “I had actually wanted to speak with you, I’m glad that you--”

 

“Not now,” Leia motions to Rey, “She’s hurt. I understand that you have another patient in dire condition at the moment, but perhaps you could relinquish one of your medics to help Rey here?”

 

“I would listen to her,” Rey cuts in just as the doctor is about to respond, “Your son is in that room.”

 

It’s a cruel way to break the news, but she understands that she needs to turn all attention away from herself for the time being. She can’t tell Leia one story and then have Kylo wake to tell her another, and presenting her with a wounded, possibly dying son seems the best way to distract her from the promised interrogation.

 

Leia’s head jerks towards Rey, brow furrowed, “What--”

 

“It’s true,” Doctor Kalonia speaks up shooting Rey a warning look, “Please Leia, come in.” She moves out of the door frame, revealing a room with several hospital beds within it. A heart monitor fills the air with its incessant beeping. Kylo’s heart rate hasn’t come down yet it seems. 

 

Rey stands awkwardly just outside the room as Leia rushes past her. She hadn’t been invited in, she doesn’t know if she’s _allowed_ in. But Kylo is in there, dying and prone, and he needs her. So she pushes aside her petty reservations and follows the two women to his bedside. 

 

They already have him hooked up to and IV of some sort, and they have changed him out of his soiled clothes. Rey walks around to the side of the bed that the two women aren’t at, the far side nearest the windows, and lets her hand fall gently over his own. She decides in this moment that she will wait right here until he wakes up or dies. She won’t leave him. 

 

“Ben,” Leia chokes and comes to her knees at his bedside, “Oh God...Ben.”

 

She doesn’t say much other than his name as she holds a single large hand in both of her own and cries. Doctor Kalonia rubs her shoulders, but doesn’t speak a word. Knowing, like many good doctors do, when a moment of silence is appropriate and needed. 

 

Rey lets her eyes close, and brings her forehead down to rest on the bedlinens next to Kylo’s hand. They smell of laundry detergent, something she hadn’t thought she’d ever scent again. She listens to Leia’s sobs, deep and heaving things that come from the darkest depths of the woman so forlorn in a moment that should be joyous; reuniting with her son.

 

A hand is placed on her shoulder, and she lifts her head to find the doctor standing beside her, looking down on her with sad eyes. “You’re hurt. Come here, let me take a look at you.”

 

Kalonia has her sit on the edge of the bed adjacent to Kylo’s as she examines Rey’s wounds. She gently prods at her stomach with gloved fingers, making Rey wince. She then walks away to one of the cabinets across the room, again revealing the sight of the grieving mother knelt before her son. Rey has to look away, it’s too personal to intrude upon such a thing.

 

The doctor returns with a small white first aid bag and retrieves antiseptic and gauze from within. “Most of these have scabbed over,” she gestures to the cuts across Rey’s belly, “They don’t need stitches. I’m going to disinfect them and wrap them. I expect you to come back daily for me to redress them until they have sufficiently healed…” She stops and looks at Rey for a long moment, “Actually, I’m going to keep you here. I don’t want you to do anything that might reopen these, supervision seems the best way to assure that won’t happen.” 

 

Rey nods in silent agreement as Doctor Kalonia begins her work, wincing as the antiseptic is applied to her dirty wounds. She’s felt worse. The sensation of dumping iodine across her freshly skinned foot comes to mind. She’s pleased with the idea of being kept under the doctor’s watch, not only will it keep her from being questioned too harshly by anyone, but it also keeps her as close to Kylo as she could possibly be. Rey decides to give the doctor further reason to hold her. 

 

“My ankle,” She complains as the final bandage is applied to her midsection, “It’s been injured for weeks, I don’t know what’s wrong with it.” She lifts her left foot slightly, ready for an examination. 

 

Kalonia removes her shoe, raising an eyebrow at the scarring on the top of her foot, but not questioning further. She then rolls up Rey’s pant leg and brushes her fingers over the bruised skin there. Then exam is overall unpleasant, and Rey cries aloud several times, but in the end the conclusion is reached that she has sprain, a severe one, but at least it’s not broken. 

 

The doctor ties a new splint into place, a real one this time, hopefully that will be enough to finally mend the persistent wound. When she finishes they both cast a glance back towards Leia, who has fallen silent at her son’s side. 

 

“Is there anything else you need?” Kalonia asks quietly.

 

Rey decides that now isn’t the time to ask for a pregnancy test, not while the grandmother of her potential child is bent and broken at her son’s bedside. Besides, she doubts that she’s pregnant anyways, she’s so malnourished, has been treated so terribly. “Later.” She whispers in return. 

 

The doctor nods and goes to be with Leia again, finally speaking to the woman, “Leia, his chances are good now. I’ve got him on fluids and a powerful antibiotic.”

 

Leia sobs again, ignoring what the doctor had said, “Oh Harter, the last time I spoke to him was terrible, so terrible. And now he comes back to me like this? I’m being punished, that has to be it.”

 

Harter Kalonia kneels beside the woman and pulls her into a tight embrace, “Leia,” she soothes, “Leia did you listen to a word I just said? He’s going to be okay, you’ll have time to make amends.”

 

Rey finds relief in those words as well, the doctor sounds so sure now that Kylo will live. She will also have time to speak to him, to tell him that she knows everything and that it doesn’t matter because they are the same. She will have time to tell him that she loves him more than anything, and that she will do everything in her power to keep him safe from the tragedy of his past. No one will take him from her. 

 

Leia stays for hours after she has calmed, sitting by Kylo’s bedside, where Rey longs to be, holding his hand and stroking his hair. 

 

Neither Finn nor Poe come to visit, and when Rey asks after them Doctor Kalonia kindly explains that she isn’t allowing any visitors beyond family at the moment. 

 

Rey bites her tongue to keep from snapping at her. Finn and Poe _are_ her family. But the doctor means well. She doesn’t want them to come in and disturb Kylo, doesn’t want Rey to move too sharply or suddenly and reopen any of her wounds, and likely doesn’t want her work space to become too crowded. But there is a dark, nagging voice at the back of Rey’s mind, it tells her that they have intentionally chosen to avoid her, that they are angry with her, disgusted by her for what she had done to them. It could be true. Finn had been receptive enough, but Poe? Poe had been distant and uncertain, rightly wary of her. Maybe he had talked some sense into Finn, shared his concerns. And she had seen neither hide nor hair of Jess in her brief time here.

 

Rey shuts her eyes and fights back a sudden wave of grief at the thought of being alone again. But she isn’t alone. Kylo is here, and he will live. He has to. The doctor had said that he would. She looks past Leia and Kylo, out the wide windows to see that the sun has begun to set, sinking behind the treeline and casting the sky in a lovely orange, dusting the bottoms of the few sparse clouds in pink. 

 

She’s so tired. So _very_ tired. She hasn’t slept well since their last night in the house. How long ago had that been? 

 

“What’s the date?” She calls softly across the room to where Harter sits at her desk, a novel open in her lap.

 

“Hmm?” She raises her head, not having heard Rey clearly. 

 

But she doesn’t have to repeat herself, instead Leia cuts in, breaking her silent vigil at her son’s side, “September twenty-first.” All of her previous kindness is missing, replaced by sadness, and a hint of something even more unpleasant than that; suspicion. 

 

The twenty-first? Kylo’s last journal entry had been on the twelfth. She clenches her fist over the bag that lays at her side. Hux had them for nearly a week. 

 

“What are you to my son?” Leia asks, that suspicion Rey had heard before bubbling to the surface. She glances up to find the older woman looking at her accusingly, like she has done something terrible, like this is all her fault. 

 

Rey recoils and looks away, up to the ceiling, down at her hands, anywhere but at the woman asking her a questions. “I...we--”

 

“Spit it out!” Leia rises from her seat, anger tinting her features pink. 

 

Why this sudden outburst? What has Rey done to find herself on the receiving end of such rage? 

 

“Leia,” Doctor Kalonia jumps in, coming to stand between where Leia clenches her small fists and where Rey sits on the bed, “Leia you’re tired and grieving, please don’t take it out on this poor girl.” 

 

There is a beat of silence before Leia takes a deep, calming breath and nods, “You’re right, I should go to bed.”

 

Kalonia pats her shoulder, “He’ll still be here in the morning. I promise. Now please go get some rest in your own bed.”

 

Leia places one last gentle kiss on her son’s forehead then gathers herself and makes her way towards the door, stopping with her hand on the knob and looking back at Rey, “I apologize for that outburst, I’m just…” She trails off. 

 

“We’re together,” Rey blurts, feeling that perhaps she _does_ owe this woman some explanation of her presence at her son’s side, “I mean--”

 

“I see.” Leia nods, her face betraying none of her emotions as she exits the room, shutting the door carefully behind herself. 

 

Rey gulps and looks back to the doctor for some sort of reassurance. 

 

“You had implied that there was something else you needed? Something that you couldn’t, or didn’t want to ask for in front of Leia?” Kalonia seems intent to ignore Rey’s revelation and Leia’s lack of reaction.

 

Rey nods, now seems as good a time as any, “I need a pregnancy test.” Her voice wavers. She is afraid. 

 

Doctor Kalonia’s eyes widen, “ _Together_...right.” She walks briskly over to her supply cabinet and fishes around inside until she finds what she is looking for, upon her return Rey notices that she has not one, but two boxes held in her hands. One is an at home pregnancy test, the other is a box of Plan B. She shuffles so that the Plan B is slightly obscured by her lab coat.

 

“I don’t have the equipment to do any sort of definite medical test, if I did I would offer it to you.” Rey reaches for the at-home test but the woman pulls it back slightly, “I will let you have it, but let me ask you a few questions first, just so we have some idea of how accurate it will be. When was your last period?”

 

Rey pauses and thinks for a moment, it had stopped coming more than a month previous, long before she had sex with Kylo. “It stopped I think, a long time before Kylo and I...I don’t know when it would start again, I’ve barely eaten over the last few months and I’ve been under extreme physical duress.”

 

The doctor’s brow furrows, “I’ll take it the details of the ‘duress’ are something Leia will want to hear later, but that’s beside the point. When did you last have unprotected sex?”

 

Rey bites her lip. How much time has passed since that morning in the cabin? “A day ago. I think?”

 

“And before that?”

 

“A week, maybe?” Rey offers sheepishly.

 

“Alright,” she sighs and opens the box that contains the test, “It might not be very accurate, but it’s worth a shot. If you became pregnant last time, it won’t show here, not yet. But if you became pregnant the previous time, or any time before that, this could be helpful.”

 

“If it does come back negative,” Kalonia lifts the Plan B up into Rey’s line of sight, “I would like you to consider taking this to prevent pregnancy from your most recent tryst. These are dangerous and uncertain times, this world is no place for a newborn.”

 

Rey frowns at the box, her right hand falling to rest low over her abdomen. She isn’t so sure about that, not anymore. “And if it comes back positive?”

 

“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” The doctor offers, “I have several options available to you in that event.”

 

Kalonia directs Rey towards an attached bathroom and shuts the door gently behind her. Leaving the girl to her own devices. Rey, with shaking hands, opens the box. A stick--the test--and a small packet of instructions fall out onto the counter. She gulps as she unfolds them, scanning them and finding that it’s really quite simple; pee on the stick.

 

Rey does as it instructs an then sets the test on the counter, pulls her dirtied leggings back up her thighs, and waits. Each minute feels like an hour, and with every second Rey grows more anxious. And what’s worse, she doesn’t know what she wants it to say once those five, agonizing minutes are up. Negative is what she _should_ want. She is only twenty, and Doctor Kalonia is right, this world is too dangerous to bring a child into. But a small, romantic part of her hopes for the tiny plus sign to appear on the test, hopes that she will bear a child with pale skin and dark eyes just like their father. And suddenly this baby has taken shape and gender, suddenly names flood her mind.

 

And then five minutes are up.

 

Her hand visibly quivers as she lifts the test from its place on the counter, and she is flooded with simultaneous relief and profound sadness as she glimpses the negative sign there. She opens the door that leads back out into the room and finds Kalonia loitering nervously near the doorway. She holds it up so the woman can see, and she nods her head understandingly. 

 

“Okay,” She sounds relieved to know that Rey isn’t, or might not be pregnant. As she leads Rey back to the bed, offering her arm to help keep the girl off of her left ankle, she explains, “Now, it is up to you, but I would suggest taking the Plan B. It is late, and I’m going to go to bed soon, but I’ll leave it on your bedside table along with a glass of water.”

 

When they reach the bed Rey finds a set of clean clothing laid out for her.

 

“Rose dropped them off while you were in the restroom. She’s a bit shorter than you, but they should fit. Will you need help changing?” She asks, lifting up a faded gray t-shirt.

 

Rey shakes her head, “No, I should be fine.”

 

“Okay. My room is just next door, and,” she motions to a baby monitor on her desk, “The partner to that is set up at my bedside. Just call and I’ll come running.”

 

Rey nods again, sitting down on the edge of the bed and eyeing the box of Plan B.

 

“Please,” Kalonia sighs, “Please consider it.”

 

Rey nods one final time, and then the doctor leaves without another word. 

 

She changes in silence, wincing as she raises her arms over her head to put on the fresh shirt. It feels good to finally be wearing clean clothes, but that is relegated to the back of her mind as she limps to Kylo’s bedside. She stares at him for a long while, the panels of his pale face, the way the light catches the sheen of sweat that still coats his feverish skin. Doctor Kalonia had said that he was going to live, and Rey desperately wants to believe her. But they hadn’t taken her gun from her, hadn’t even searched her for weapons, the fools. And in the event that Kylo does die, she is still prepared to use it. 

 

She brushes a loose strand of hair out of his face and turns to crawl into her own bed when a large, rough hand catches her wrist. 

 

“Rey?” He rasps, tugging at her weakly, beckoning her to his side.

 

She turns back to him and kneels beside his bed, “Hey.” She offers, clutching his hand in her own. She presses open mouthed kisses up his wrist and onto his palm. 

 

“Where are we?” His voice wavers, he is very weak. 

 

Rey decides against telling him the whole truth, she doesn’t know the full story between him and his mother, and she doesn’t want to cause him further stress. So she explains as vaguely as possible; “We were rescued by some people, they brought us back to a compound. We’re safe for now, I promise.” 

 

He nods, believing her wholly and without question. Rey presses his hand to her cheek and he closes his eyes again. “I love you.” He whispers as sleep pulls him far, far away from her. 

 

Tears well in Rey’s eyes and she begins to cry silently as she watches him. They have gone through so much, _too_ much. She lays his hand back down on the bed and presses a gentle kiss to his full mouth. Then, tears still making their silent trek over her hollow cheeks, she tears open the box of Plan B and removes one of the small, innocuous pills from its blister pack and knocks it back with a long swig from the glass of water. 

 

Then she climbs under the thin sheet, closes her eyes, and tries to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Rey, Doctor Kalonia didn't explain that Plan B has some less than desirable side effects. Oh well, she'll figure it out in the morning. 
> 
> Sorry this took so long, I was in North Carolina for a week and my internet was super dodgy, then when I came back I had some college stuff that I had to attend to. :(
> 
> But it's another 30+ page monster! Please let me know what you think, I do love feedback. <3
> 
> Also, this fic is now over 300 pages in google docs, yikes it's getting big. Thanks so much everyone for reading.


	15. Wake

Rey wakes briefly to the sensation of cold fingers pressing against her cheek. She stirs in the too-hot sheets and glances up at her assailant with heavy, hooded eyes. Doctor Kalonia is bent slightly over her, one gloved hand gently holding Rey down to the mattress, the other pushing at the half forgotten cut on her face. 

 

“Shh,” the doctor says softly, “Go back to sleep, I’m just dressing this, it looked irritated.” 

 

Rey hums and closes her eyes again, more than happy to oblige the woman. It’s only just as sleep reclaims her that she questions when, exactly, Doc’s bandage had fallen off, and how she hadn’t noticed. Then there is the sensation again, cold fingers pressing on her thigh. This time she becomes acutely aware of exactly where she is and who she is surrounded by, a strange place, and strangers. She sits bolt upright on the bed and finds the doctor is examining the gunshot wound she had received while escaping Hux’s prison. 

 

She must have reopened it in the night, the sheets are smeared with drying blood. Not enough to be of much concern to Rey, but clearly enough to catch the doctor’s attention. 

 

“What’s this from?” Kalonia asks as she gently dabs it with a piece of gauze.

 

Rey swallows and blinks the sleep from her eyes, “A bullet graze.” She offers no more in way of explanation. If she gives these people even a crumb she suspects they’ll ask for much more than she can give. She notices a sudden throbbing in her head, and cramping in her stomach. What is this? A wave of nausea overtakes her and she doubles over, wrapping her arms around her stomach and biting down hard on her lip as she pushes back against the urge to vomit. 

 

Thankfully Doctor Kalonia takes immediate notice of her discomfort and doesn’t question her further. She just bandages the wound and leaves Rey be, striding over to her desk. “Clean sheets can wait for now, you probably don’t feel much like getting up anyways, do you?”

 

The doctor doesn’t seem at all surprised by her sudden onset of symptoms. For a brief, terrifying moment Rey thinks that she has been poisoned, that the water she had taken her pill with the night before had been spiked, or that she had been injected with some nameless toxin in her sleep. But Kalonia lays those fears to rest before Rey can give them voice.

 

“You’re experiencing the side effects of Plan B. I didn’t warn you ahead of time because I didn’t want you to shy away from taking it. You made the right decision.” The woman explains kindly, reaching under her desk and pulling out a small, peach colored pan. She sets it on the bed beside Rey and rubs her back gently, “Here, just in case you get sick.”

 

Rey shakes her head, trying to clear away the pounding behind her temples, but only managing to intensify it with the sudden movement, “This doesn’t feel like the right decision.” She groans as she reclines back onto her pillow, the nausea eases a bit at the relaxed position but the cramping remains just as intense as before. 

 

“It’s just your body reacting to a change in its natural cycle, you’ll feel much better tomorrow, I promise. Now, try to get some more rest, you’ve gone through so much.” The woman soothes, pulling the thin sheet up and over Rey’s body.

 

It’s not a difficult command to follow with how horrid she feels. But the sleep isn’t a restful one, it’s fevered and filled with shadows she isn’t yet ready to face. The sound of a zombie, a twelve year old boy, meeting his end as she slams her bat into his skull. The silhouettes of two small children playing in their front yard as their mother watches over them while their father stands, twitching in a broken window. The screams of a thousand beasts reaching for her, high on a rack of tires, snapping their jaws and clawing at her feet as she climbs up and up and up. The image of a man, pale and lifeless on the floor of a log cabin, dark eyes glassy and unseeing, gazing upwards towards nothing. All of these images vie to take hold of the forefront of her mind, compete to be the single worst one to torture her, even in what should be the safety of her her unconscious. 

 

One of them wins ultimately. One of them is far worse than the others, far more harrowing, far more personal. And so it is the image of Kylo’s still, lifeless body that emblazons itself on the backs of her eyelids, across the main stage of her fragile mind. It feels so real, kneeling there beside him, her skinned knees throbbing as she presses them hard onto the floor. Dead leaves blow in from outside of the open door, scattering around his corpse like morbid garnishes on a twisted dinner plate. Because that is what they are now, supper for the horrors that shamble and twitch outside of the door. She has opened it intentionally, too cowardly to take her own life. Rather she has chosen to feed herself to the dogs, let them live where she and Kylo have failed, give the two of them over to everything they both hate because they have failed, what else could they possibly deserve? 

 

They hear her crying softly over him, smell the scent of fresh rot rising off of his body. One of them stalks in, over the threshold and past the empty sleeping bags, it stands beside her, looking down at her, casting a shadow over her vision. She opens her mouth, to beckon to it, to plead with it--

 

She wakes. Silently and without any movement but that of her eyes twitching behind their lids. There _is_ a shadow cast over her, she can sense it beyond her closed eyes, looming there at her bedside. But it doesn’t moan or click like the creatures so often do, rather it stands quiet and still as a voice speaks from elsewhere.

 

“...you think so?” It’s Doctor Kalonia, likely sitting at her desk. 

 

The figure beside her bed speaks softly, as if trying not wake her, “Yes, they were found in the recon cabin nearest the prison, and my intel reports that Hux has his men on high alert. He has increased security and they are combing the surrounding forests for _something_.” It’s Leia. Why does she need to stand _right_ next to Rey to discuss this? It is a marked invasion of her personal space. 

 

“The poor girl still needs her rest, Leia. She’s been through far too much for someone so young.” Rey hears the doctor’s gentle footsteps approach the same side of the bed that Leia stands on. 

 

“You just told me that she hasn’t said anything, how do you know what she’s been through?” It’s a childish attempt to prove her point, to make her desire to interrogate Rey a valid and reasonable one. The woman had seemed so dignified upon their first meeting, she must be desperate to sink so low. 

 

Rey hears Kalonia outwardly scoff, “Just look at her! Just because she wasn’t unconscious upon arrival doesn’t mean she hasn’t experienced immense trauma. Her abdomen has been ripped apart by barbed wire, her cheek is still recovering from a severe infection, she has a bullet wound on her thigh, and on top of it all she just took Plan B less than twenty four hours ago. The poor thing isn’t up for an interrogation right now Leia!”

 

Rey cringes internally at the mention of the Plan B. She had hoped the doctor would keep that between the two of them. But of course she told Leia, the woman is in charge of this entire operation, she knows all of the goings on here, even this.

 

The older woman sighs, defeated, and steps away from Rey’s bedside, “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I just...I need to know what is happening, if Hux is planning an attack or...I don’t know. My man on the inside has gone quiet, I’m practically blind at the moment.” She pauses and takes a deep breath, one that Rey can hear even as the woman walks away, then she continues, more grimmly than before, “And then there’s him--”

 

Rey is overtaken by a sudden, powerful wave of nausea, her eyes fly open and she sits up in bed, scrambling to find the plastic bin she had been given. She grips it in the nick of time, just as her stomach flips and she doubles over, vomiting into it.

 

“Fuck!” She gasps once it’s over, swiping hastily at her mouth with back of her hand. Both of the other women in the room have rushed to her side, Leia rubs a soothing hand up and down Rey’s back as she gasps and sputters over the pan, spitting into it in a failed attempt to clear the foul taste from her mouth. Kalonia brings her a towel, and offers it to her once she has finished cursing. 

 

“Thank you,” Rey murmurs as she takes the rag and wipes her mouth with it. Her cheeks begin to flame as she glances up at the two women. She is far more embarrassed than she should be, it’s not like she has control over this. But that’s not what bothers her, no. It’s the reason _why_ she is so ill, and the fact that these two women know it, that leads her to bury her face in her hands.

 

“Ugh.” She grunts and falls back onto the bed, looking away from them and towards the wall. She couldn’t help but notice that Leia had looked a bit… _guilty_ , as Rey had struggled through the remainder of her fit. 

 

Kalonia takes the soiled pan away, leaving Leia and Rey alone for a brief moment. Rey tries to ignore the feeling of the older woman’s eyes on her, but it’s near impossible in the dead silence of the room.

 

“I would like to apologize again,” Leia speaks up, and Rey turns her aching head to look at the woman, “For how I treated you last night.”

 

Rey ponders the apology for a moment, then accepts it, it seems genuine. “It’s okay, it makes sense that you would be protective.”

 

Leia sighs and tugs a chair from Kylo’s bedside over to Rey’s, she sits and looks her over once, her eyes pause at the bandage on her cheek. “It’s no excuse for how I snapped at you.”

 

They sit awkwardly for several more moments, and Rey averts her eyes up to the ceiling. The cramps aren’t as intense as they had been before. Now they’re just a mild thrum in her midsection, occasionally making her wince, but nothing more. 

 

“You made the right decision,” Leia breaks the quiet again, and Rey looks to her, confused by her words. What decision? “By taking the Plan B, you made the right decision.”

 

Oh, that one. 

 

“Having a child in a world like this, where everything is so uncertain, would just be cruel. And you’re still so young, I’m sure that Ben will understand.” She offers kindly. 

 

Rey blanches. She hadn’t thought of how Kylo might react to this news. She disagrees with Leia, she doesn’t think he’d take it well at all. She loves him, but he’s a possessive bastard, if he found out that she had intentionally… no he can’t know about this. 

 

“I’d prefer we not tell him about this at all,” Rey’s voice is small, quiet when faced with the woman who holds her fate in the palm of her hand. 

 

“Why?” The woman sounds genuinely confused by Rey’s request, like she actually doesn’t know how her son would react to this situation. “Ben has always been an understanding boy, he won’t be angry.” 

 

Rey wants to laugh. Kylo? Understanding? That certainly wouldn’t be her first choice of descriptors. Rash and impulsive come to mind. How long has it been since these two have been together that his mother could know so little of him. Against her better judgement Rey says as much, “I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve spoken to him, but I can promise you that he will not be understanding about this. At all.”

 

Leia sits back in her chair, brow furrowing, she opens her mouth like she is about to argue when Kalonia re-enters with a clean bin in hand. The timing is too perfect, and Rey suspects that she had been listening in. She lays the bin next to Rey on the bed. 

 

“Here, all clean. Good aim.” She comments and then lays a hand on Leia’s shoulder. “Come on, I need to speak to you about something, and Rey needs to rest.”

 

Leia’s eyes dart from Kalonia to Rey, and back. She doesn’t look angry, no, she looks _lost_. Perhaps she is considering the possibility that she really doesn’t know her son any longer, that somewhere between whatever took place between the two of them and the present, he had become a different person. Rey suspects that is correct, Kylo has been many things towards her, but never outwardly understanding. But that’s not entirely true either, he had understood when she needed him to touch her, to make her forget. And he had understood that day as they drove away from the gas station, had let her cry on his shoulder when she had revealed her betrayal of her friends to him.

 

“We’ll be back in a bit, Rey.” Kalonia offers with a tight lipped smile, and then she shuffles Leia out of the room, off somewhere else to discuss something that Rey probably wouldn’t care about. 

 

Rey spares a glance at Kylo before she rolls over to face away from him, towards the wall. She is _so_ tired, but she doesn’t want to sleep, doesn’t think she can after that nightmare she had experienced. It had felt so visceral, too real for her to handle. Maybe it was real, and this is all just a dream, a hallucination. Maybe she’s already dead. 

 

She lays there, alone in the room--save for Kylo’s unconscious form--and shakes. Her head throbs, her abdomen cramps, her stomach does flips beneath her ribs, it’s all too much. She feels much the same way she had in those days they spent at the house in Mississippi, only now she has no one to offer her any comfort. 

 

Rey sits up and slides her feet over the side of the bed, letting her bare toes press against the hardwood floor. She watches him, cast in the light of the setting sun that filters through the windows. Staring at him she almost forgets her many hurts, both physical and emotional. _Almost._

 

She slowly slides the rest of the way off of the bed, careful to keep her feet from smacking against the floor as she lets her arches and then her heels touch down. She wobbles for a moment, and winces as she puts too much pressure on her left ankle, but she rights herself fairly quickly, and then limps across the narrow space between their beds to be at Kylo’s side. She watches him for a moment, taking his face and form to memory like she has so many times over these last few days. 

 

Rey climbs up and onto the sliver of mattress not covered by him and curls into his side, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply of his scent. It’s there, beneath the days of grime and sweat and the sterility of this place, his essence still remains. Kylo lives yet. 

 

Nestled into his side and comforted by his familiar warmth she falls asleep. It is dreamless and restful. 

 

Three days pass like this, Rey wakes in the morning, Leia visits midday, and then Rey goes to sleep at night. Kalonia doesn’t comment on Rey being in her own bed when the doctor leaves at night and then being in Kylo’s upon her return in the morning. The woman takes it in stride, and with a kind smile, just like she takes everything else. Rey is grateful that the woman never inquires as to the contents of the messenger bag that she keeps so close to her side. 

 

Over those three days Rey learns several things from her menial, tense smalltalk with Leia, and her more relaxed conversations with the doctor. For one, this place isn’t actually referred to as ‘The Farm’, that is apparently just what Hux and company had taken to calling it, everyone else calls it the compound. Secondly she learns a brief history of this place, and by extension gains a new understanding of Leia Organa as a person.

 

Leia had owned this farm beforehand, before everything had gone to shit, and on hearing the first news report about the outbreak she had gathered willing participants from the nearby town and begun to build. In a week the wall had been up, just as the first hordes began to flow over the borders of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma and into Texas. Leia had taken in as many people as were willing to stay, and then she had closed the gates. 

 

The third, and quite possibly the most important thing Rey has learned, is where they are currently residing; eastern Texas. Rey isn’t entirely sure what state she and Kylo had been in when they were ambushed, she can’t quite remember after all of those days of torture. Had they still been in Mississippi? Had they crossed over into Louisiana yet? She doesn’t know. But that hardly matters. What she does know is that they sure as hell hadn’t been in Texas. Hux’s men brought them a long way. 

 

She decides that she can reveal as much, this truth is a safe one to relay, so long as she doesn’t mention the journal or any of Kylo’s actions in Atlanta. “Hux’s men ambushed us well outside of Texas. We had been in Mississippi that morning. They shot out the tire on our truck and we spun out, from there everything gets hazy.”

 

Leia does a double take where she stands at Kalonia’s desk. The two had been quietly discussing something uninteresting, supply lines or something of the like. Rey supposes what she has just said, unprompted, is deserving of such an outlandish reaction, but when Leia practically leaps to her bedside she has to restrain herself from chuckling. 

 

“So it _was_ Hux,” Leia takes one of Rey’s hands in her own, “He ambushed you in Mississippi, you say?”

 

Rey pauses, trying her damndest to remember exactly where they had been, but that day is such a blur of panic in her memory she comes up with nothing, “We could have been in Louisiana at that point, I don’t--”

 

Leia paces away from her bedside again, and Rey sits up so she doesn’t have to crane her neck to watch the tiny woman pace, “That’s besides the point. What matters is that Hux is casting a wide net, sending men well beyond where I had thought.” She turns back to Rey, and the glint in her eye is almost accusatory, “Were you headed west?”

 

“Yes.” Rey keeps her eyes locked onto the woman’s, trying to make it seem as if she has nothing to hide when in reality she has _everything_ to hide. 

 

“He must know that I’ve sent people out west,” Leia groans and goes to stand in front of a dumbstruck Harter Kalonia. The doctor keeps glancing between the two other women, obviously shocked that they are suddenly so… _amicable_. Rey shrugs her shoulders and smiles sheepishly as if to say, ‘Just trying to get in good with the inlaws’. “He assumes that if I’ve sent them west then I have also sent them east, the buffoon. But he’s also likely to have sent his own men west as well...why didn’t I know this, my man on the inside…” She trails off and paces over to the window, staring out at the noonday sky. 

 

Rey gulps and looks down at her hands where they fidget in her lap. _What if I killed her man on the inside._ It is a legitimate fear to have. How many had she killed on her way out of the prison, four? Six, assuming the two Kylo had shot did die. They hadn’t stuck around long enough to see. Six out of how many? A hundred, two hundred, three? The odds are slim, but Rey still feels a twinge of guilt deep in her gut. 

 

“So,” Doctor Kalonia finally speaks up, “You’ve heard nothing from Biggs?”

 

_Biggs._

 

“No, nothing.” Leia shakes her head and lets one hand come up to rest against the window pane, leaning against it and bowing her head, “Radio silence. I fear the worst.”

 

Rey speaks up, hearing the very real despair quaver in Leia’s voice, “I met Biggs while I was there.” It might be too much, this thing that she is revealing, but this woman is in pain and deserves to know what little Rey has to offer.

 

“What?” Leia looks over her shoulder at Rey, wide eyed and uncertain, “You did? How do you know?”

 

Rey licks her chapped lips and begins, hesitantly, “He was one of the men who personally guarded my cell, I didn’t suspect a thing, he blended so well into Hux’s detail…”

 

Leia and Kalonia share a pointed, concerned look, and then Leia pulls a chair over to sit next to Rey’s bed. “That isn’t good. Biggs is an old family friend, he would’ve recognized my son. About when did you arrive?”

 

Rey counts the days in her head, using Kylo’s journal as a reference, “...the fourteenth? I think? Like I said before, everything is a blur.”

 

Leia swallows hard and nods, her face grim, “That was about the time I stopped receiving intel from him. There are only two explanations for this. One, he has turned on me and all of the people here who he knows and loves. Or two, it became too dangerous for him to report in.”

 

Rey is unsure, Biggs had been kinder than Wedge, but then again so had Doc. There’s no telling exactly what was going through the man’s mind. “I don’t know,” Rey offers as an apology, “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you anything more.” 

 

“No,” Leia scolds gently, “Don’t apologize, none of this was your fault.” She pauses for a second, lips pursed, eyes cast down to her lap, then she looks up again, new life sparking in those familiar brown irises, “Could I ask one more question of you, dear?”

 

Rey’s mouth quirks up at the corners. _Dear_. “Yes, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to answer it.” 

 

Leia smiles and proceeds, “I’m sure you didn’t have the run of the place during your stay, but did you ever encounter a man named Wedge while you were being held?”

 

Rey’s face visibly falls. _Shit_. Wedge had been one of the six to die during her escape, he had been guarding that room where Hux held his women. Rey had stabbed his throat and watched him bleed out in that rickety wooden chair, then she had stolen his knife and his gun. She still has the gun. It weighs heavily at her hip now, it’s many edges feel like they are splitting into her side. She opens her mouth, wanting to speak the terrible truth of it, but she is unable to find her voice. 

 

Leia’s face becomes a mirror of her own, and the woman seems to understand what Rey is trying to say. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

 

Rey watches from the corner of her eye as Kalonia rises from the seat at her desk and walks cautiously towards them, preparing to break up any spat that might arise from this. The girl nods, and Leia does the same in return. 

 

“I won’t ask how.” Leia whispers, “I don’t think that I want to know.” She rises and pulls the doctor into a half hug, “He was a good man once, until I sent my brother, one of his dearest friends, out west on a mission. He vehemently disagreed with me, thought it was a fool’s errand, a suicide mission, but I ignored him and sent Luke anyways. It was just a day later that Hux sent his first envoy, offering sanctuary to any that would leave with him that night. Wedge packed up his family and left. He wasn’t the only one, but he was the one that hurt the most.”

 

Rey’s guilt eases a little at the revelation. Wedge had been there of his own free will. Maybe he had truly been a monster. But then Leia continues.

 

“All of this was before we discovered what Hux was using that facility for. I’m sure you already know, but he keeps women captive to keep his men appeased and happily working for him. That’s what he was arrested for in the first place, human trafficking. Once the world had ended it only made sense that the wretch would return to his old ways. Once I had Biggs on the inside it became clear that Hux was holding Wedge’s family hostage and using them as leverage against him.”

 

Rey’s heart sinks into her stomach. Not only had she murdered a man, but it’s likely she has damned his family too, unless Hux can find it in his cold, barren heart to spare them. She blurts, deciding to do this as quickly and cleanly as possible; “It was me. I killed Wedge,” her words are rushed, she’s desperate to explain herself before one of these women inevitably turns on her, “I was trying to get Kylo and I out, and he was guarding a hallway so I had to stab him. He would’ve alerted the rest of the prison otherwise. We would’ve died.” 

 

Rey reaches into her waistband and removes the handgun from where it feels as though it is scalding her, “Here, I took this off of his body.” She holds it out, in reach of both women, but neither move to retrieve it. 

 

The beat of silence is only broken by the steady beeping of Kylo’s heart monitor. Then Leia slowly reaches out and takes the weapon. She turns it in her hands, over and over again, examining it. Rey wonders if there is some sort of identifying mark for which she is searching. She finally speaks, “My people really did a poor job of searching you when they found you, didn’t they?” 

 

The jest shocks Rey, ice shooting down her spine as she waits for what she thinks will be inevitable rage. But instead Leia continues on, obviously trying with all of her might to muster a smile. “They don’t notice your obvious injuries _and_ they leave a stranger armed, in my compound? I’ll have to speak with them.” 

 

The woman’s sad brown eyes come up to meet Rey’s. The girl wants to look away, but Leia’s gaze is strong, it holds her in place, keeps her still while she awaits judgement. But there is still no anger, no righteous fury at the loss of a friend. “You saved my son’s life. If what you’ve told us is true, then I owe you more than you could possibly imagine, Rey. If Wedge had to die so the two of you could escape torture, then so be it.” 

 

Leia lets the gun drop to the floor with a hard _thunk_ , and leans in, pulling Rey into a tight hug. Rey freezes in place, her hands raised halfway up behind the woman’s back, her eyes shot wide at this sudden show of forgiveness, _of gratitude_. Then she melts, collapsing into this woman and all of the kindness she has to offer. Rey’s hands rise up and clutch at Leia’s shoulders, embracing her tightly. And then Rey begins to cry, and she thinks Leia might be crying too, from the way the woman shakes in her arms. 

 

This is forgiveness. This is salvation. Only Rey needs this a hundred times over to pardon all of the crimes she has committed. 

 

Eventually they break apart, and they both swipe at their eyes, laughing anxiously at how ridiculous they must look. Doctor Kalonia smiles at Rey with such kindness and understanding that Rey nearly shatters again. But she manages to maintain the little calm she has left, falling back onto the bed sheets and throwing her forearm over her eyes. 

 

She can hear the smile in Leia’s voice as she excuses herself, “It’s getting to be well after noon now, isn’t it? I’d best be on my way.” She lays a reassuring hand on Rey’s knee, giving it a squeeze, “But I’ll be back tomorrow, same time as always.” 

 

Rey pulls her forearm away from her face, parting her lips to offer a similar farewell, when a coarse voice splits through the room like a pick through hard ice. 

 

“Mom? What the fuck are you doing here?”

 

Kylo has finally woken up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is 2:30 a.m. my eyes hurt, send help.
> 
> But in all seriousness I hope you like this one. I hope it's not too filler-y?


	16. Drywall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of sexual abuse.

_“Mom? What the fuck are you doing here?”_

 

Time stops save for the steady increase in the rate of the heart monitor. No one seems to know what to say, what to do; Rey, for lack of understanding of the obviously delicate situation; Leia and Doctor Kalonia for some reason unknown to her. They all stare at Kylo where he has sat himself upright on the hospital bed. 

 

He growls low in his chest, eyes locked onto his mother, “Where am I? What the hell--” He cuts himself off, his eyes darting to where Rey sits on her own bed, eyes still red rimmed from crying, “Rey,” His change in demeanor is astounding, one moment he had been incensed towards his mother, near physical in his level of agitation; but now he seems childlike in the way he reaches out to Rey, “Where are we? What’s happening?”

 

_Is this the difference between Ben and Kylo?_

 

Rey pounces off of her bed, ignoring the way her ankle throbs when she hits the floor, and goes to stand by his own. She takes one of his large hands in both of her own. His eyes are wide and fearful, a kind of fear she hasn’t before recognized within Kylo. It is like the fear of the dark, or of the monster that lives under the bed. It is as if Kylo has reverted to a previous state, a youthful one. If seeing his mother has affected him this much the situation between the two of them must be very hostile. More so than Rey had originally suspected.

 

“We’re in Texas,” Rey explains calmly, carefully watching as the expression on his face twists at the revelation, “Some of your mother’s people found us after we escaped the prison and brought us here. You had blood poisoning, but you’re better now. We’re safe.” 

 

Kylo swallows hard, weighing her words. She can see the thoughts flashing behind his dark eyes. He looks past her and to his mother, his face scrunches and his fists ball in the sheets, whitening his knuckles as the linens tear, _“Get out.”_ He hisses, venom dripping from his words.

 

“Ben, I--”

 

“Get out!” He shouts and leaps from the bed, his own IV pulling from his skin in the process, but he hardly seems to notice as he seethes. 

 

“Go! Go. I’ll handle it.” Rey turns to the doctor and Leia, waving them out, her eyes switching back and forth between their cowering forms and Kylo where he stands beside the bed. The two women heed her words and shuffle out of the room quickly.

 

Once they are gone Rey turns back to Kylo. He is still standing beside the bed, but he no longer looks enraged, now he appears almost… _sheepish_. He rubs his shoulder awkwardly, blood still streaming down his arm where he had torn out his IV. Rey scowls and struts over to Kalonia’s desk, digging through the various drawers until she finds a roll of gauze. She tears off a piece and hands it to Kylo. 

 

“Here,” It’s an effort to keep her voice level, “Hold this on your arm until it stops bleeding.” 

 

There must be some bite to her words because Kylo flinches a bit before he takes it, “What’s wrong?” 

 

Rey storms over to where the heart monitor is plugged in, now emitting a mind numbingly shrill tone since Kylo has removed himself from its jurisdiction. She yanks the cord from the wall and spins on her heel to glare at him.

 

He really doesn’t know what he has done? Does he see nothing wrong with the exchange that had taken place less than a minute earlier? 

 

“Are you joking?” Rey scoffs, “You really don’t understand why I might be a _bit_ irritated with you at the moment? I took you for impulsive, but not oblivious!” She throws her hands up in the air and goes to stand in front of the window, not sparing him so much as a glance as he flounders for the right words to say. 

 

“I--” He struggles for a moment, “ _You_ don’t understand the context of all of this.” 

 

Oh, flinging accusations now? “I don’t understand?!” The gall of this man, the pure narcissism that would lead him to find fault in _her_ for this, “You’ve been unconscious for four days Kylo! You have no idea what’s going on, don’t try to lecture me about context!”

 

Suddenly he is directly behind her, his arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her back into his chest. His cheap paper hospital gown crinkles where their bodies make contact, “That’s not what I meant,” his voice is no longer elevated, he has found some semblance of calm within himself, but Rey can still hear the rage simmering underneath, “I meant that you don’t know my history with my mother, you don’t know why I don’t want to be here, why I don’t want to be in the same room as her.” 

 

Rey turns around in his embrace and gives him a small shove, pushing him back far enough that she can lock eyes with him when she demands, “Tell me then.” 

 

His arms drop from her waist and he takes three steps back, slumping down when his thighs hit the side of the mattress. He looks past her, out the window and to the horizon. He’s gone someplace else, she thinks, some place far away from here. Whatever happened to him in his past, whatever happened between his mother and him, it’s severe. Severe enough to leave one of the most cocksure men alive speechless at the mention of it. 

 

“Kylo, it’s--” She had meant to tell him that it was okay, that he doesn’t have to continue, that she _hates_ seeing him like this; afraid and distant, lost in some hellscape of his own creation. But he cuts her off.

 

“I was born and raised here, on this farm. This used to be my father’s office,” He motions to the room around them with one arm. His eyes are still set past her, gazing out the window and onto the shanty town that now occupies what had once been his front yard. “We had sheep and cows and horses. But mostly we grew corn. I hated it.”

 

He sits for a moment, staring out that window, and just when Rey is about to interject he speaks again, “When I was fifteen I had this one chemistry teacher, he was a friend of the family, a nice enough guy. But one day I stayed after school for some extra help and he...he _touched me_.” Kylo drops his head into his hands, then clenches his fists over his eyes, pressing his knuckles into his orbitals. He sniffs and bites back a sob. Rey rushes to his side, wrapping her hands around his right bicep and cooing softly to him.

 

“It’s okay, shhh, it’s okay, you don’t have to--”

 

“Yes,” He chokes out, “Yes I do. No secrets between us.” He drops his hands from his eyes and wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. He has already pushed back the impending panic attack it seems, and he continues with an abrupt and unnerving monotony, “It went on for two years, until one night he got ballsy, did it in my own home while my parents had some friends over for dinner. He came up to my room and just...did what he always did. That night was the last straw for me, I couldn’t take it anymore, _wouldn’t_ take it anymore. So after everyone had left, I told my parents.” 

 

Rey withers on the mattress beside him. Her gut sinking as she realizes where this is about to go. She hadn’t realized how deep Kylo’s wounds had run, not until now. Every strange action and every harsh word seems to fall into place as she comes to understand that this is just another in a long series of compounding events that have shaped this tortured, twisted man. 

 

“I wasn’t a good kid, by the way. By that point I was waist deep in drugs and petty crime, so when I told my parents, they didn’t believe me right away--granted, they were also drunk--but I had expected them to understand, to listen to their own child over some son of bitch chemistry teacher. But instead they waved me off, told me to sober up and go to bed.” He pauses and gulps, his fists repeatedly clench and unclench on the linens. Rey can see how hard he is trying to dissociate, his eyes are glazed and distant, staring out that same window as he continues, “I should’ve waited and told them again when they were sober. Mom might’ve listened. She always tried. But I didn’t wait, instead I decided that I needed to take care of the situation myself, since no one else would. That night I snuck downstairs, stole my dads shotgun and then stole the car. I drove to his house, and killed the man in his sleep. Then I ran. I had some connections because of my presence on the drug scene. Got a car, made it all the way out to Raleigh, North Carolina. I stayed there for two years, shooting up and fucking. It was terrible, I hated every god damned second of it.” 

 

They sit in silence for a moment, Rey’s hand rubbing gentle circles on Kylo’s shoulder. The worst has passed it seems, so she encourages him to continue, genuinely curious about how he had managed to climb from drug dens and whore houses to the military, “Then what happened?”

 

“Being involved in the drug trade had its merits. I had a buddy who forged some documents for me. Changed my name to Kylo Ren and shit like that. I was scared that the law would catch up to me, but I also just wanted to forget that Ben Solo had ever existed.” He pauses, pondering his own words for a moment, then continues. “About ten years ago, when I was twenty, I was out just kind of walking the streets in Raleigh, when an Army recruiter saw me. He approached me, said I had the right body type, said if I ever wanted to get on the straight path to come talk to him at his office. I thought on it for a few days, decided that I wouldn’t, that it was too much work, put me at too much risk of being found out. But then my buddy, the guy who forged those documents for me, he overdosed and died, and as I watched them wheel his body away, I thought ‘Fuck it, what do I have to lose?’ and I never looked back. I sobered up and joined the Army. That’s the end of that story.”

 

Rey bites the inside of her cheek nervously. Is now a good time to tell him that she had seen the journal? Her eyes shoot to where the baby monitor rests on Kalonia’s desk. 

 

“Rey?” Kylo questions as she rises from the bed and walks over to it, picking it up and flicking the off switch. “Rey?” He sounds fearful, like he thinks he has pushed her away by revealing this painful truth of his past. 

 

“I understand now,” Rey says, setting the device back down onto the desk, “I understand why you hadn’t wanted to see your mother. Why you changed your name. Why…” She trails off. No. That isn’t how she wants him to learn that she truly does know everything.

 

“‘Why’ what Rey?” He asks, cautiously, uncertain of where she had been taking that ambiguous statement. 

 

Rey sits down beside him again and twists her fingers in her lap. She decides then that they’ll trade, one truth for another. She’ll tell him her own story. “I was born in London, twenty years ago about,” she chuckles, “I can’t believe that you’re ten years older than me. It hardly seems like it.” 

 

“You’re just mature for your age.” He comments, gently poking her side. 

 

Rey scowls, thinking it’s actually quite the opposite, but continues without acknowledging his remark, “Anyways, I don’t know who my parents were, they just dropped me off outside of a fire station late one night. They say I only looked a few days old, so they guessed my birthday as August twenty seventh. I bounced around from place to place until I was six, when this big mean bastard named Unkar Plutt took me in. He made me do physical labor, kept me up so late at night that my grades suffered. The normal abusive shit. But I managed to improve my grades enough to get a study abroad scholarship for my final year. I did a year in a high school in Florida, where I met Finn and Jess, and when I went back home I decided I wanted to go to Florida to stay. So I applied for a student visa, and it took a while, but I was approved. And here we are now. You know the rest of the story…” She bites her lip, glancing away from him as she says; “And I know the rest of yours.” 

 

There is an extended beat of silence, followed by a timid, “What do you mean?”

 

“I mean I’ve seen your journal, Kylo.” He retreats from her side, curling in on himself at the head of the bed, “Kylo, listen to what I have to say.”

 

“I--” 

 

“Listen!” She snaps, chasing him up the bedsheets and putting her hands on his knees, “I’ve read the journal, but I’m still here. I’m still here and I haven’t told _anyone_.”

 

His hands are shaking where they grip tight to the paper gown he wears, bunching it up his thighs. “I don’t understand--”

 

Rey’s cheeks color with frustration. How could he not understand? Hasn’t she already made it clear? “The first chance I get I’ll destroy the damned thing, I swear to God no one will see it, ever again.” 

 

He lays his head back against the pillow. His dark eyes lock onto the ceiling. He looks hopeless. “That’s not what I meant. How do you not despise me, loathe me with every fiber of your being. All of this, everything that has happened between Atlanta and here, and before that even, it’s all my fault.” 

 

“No it’s not!” Rey cries out, crawling up his body and taking his face between her palms, forcing him to look into her eyes, “Snoke was a mad man! He would’ve killed us all, he would’ve--”

 

“Could have saved us all. He was working towards a cure.” He states, monotone, then he escalates, “I killed him because he hurt my boys, my brothers. No other reason. I should’ve let him take me too, I should’ve given myself for the greater good, _I’m a soldier Goddamnit_.” He sits up, pushing her away from him, and slamming one of his fists hard into the wall, easily breaking through the drywall, raining dust and plaster onto the hardwood floor. 

 

“Don’t say that!” Rey lunges for him, grabbing that cheap paper collar between her fingers and leveling her face with his own, “I would be _dead_ if it weren’t for you! You don’t know what Snoke was really doing! You have no idea! I read the journal and you didn’t know!”

 

“He was working for the CDC! Of course I know what he was doing! He was tasked to study the virus and search for a cure,” He snarls, their foreheads are nearly touching now, “What the hell else would he be doing?” 

 

“He was malicious, clearly, it could’ve just been a front! A proxy! He played by the CDC’s rules while furthering some underground agenda.” 

 

Kylo unhooks her fingers from his gown and pushes her aside, “You’re just desperate to excuse my actions. You can’t stand the fact that you love a monster, an animal.” 

 

He shoves past her, heading towards the window, but she stops him by wrapping her hands around his wrist and squeezing, yanking the beast of a man back towards her--it’s astounding that even in his current state of malnourishment he still seems so massive. “Don’t you fucking walk away from me! Okay! You’re right! I’m reaching for a reason. But you know what? It doesn’t fucking matter, none of this matters. All of this is irrelevant because no one else will ever know. At the first opportunity I get I’m going to burn that fucking journal and any evidence that you were at the CDC will be gone.” 

 

He laughs darkly, tearing his wrist from her grip and storming away, towards the window, “It doesn’t matter if you destroy the journal, Rey. The evidence of what I’ve done is all around us; in Atlanta, at that shitty gas station, at that Walmart, in those graves we left in Mississippi. It’s everywhere. I will never be absolved of this. I’ve damned us all. And here’s the best part of it!” He throws his head back and laughs from deep in his belly. A chill shoots down her spine at the untoward sound of it, her blood is ice in her veins, “I don’t fucking regret a thing. I would do it all over again if it meant having my revenge.”

 

He is suddenly calm, nearly sullen and he turns to look at her with near deranged brown eyes. The silent message passes between the two of them in the way the corners of his mouth fall, the way his fingers twitch like he wants to reach out to her. _I would do it all over again if it meant having you._

 

And for what seems like the hundredth time that day Rey stands and approaches him. She wraps her arms around his waist when she reaches him, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder. “We’re the same, you know.” 

 

“No we’re--”

 

“Yes we are,” she interrupts his objection, letting her right hand slide up to frame his chin, to tilt his face down so she can again look into those beautiful, utterly insane eyes, “My crimes were on a smaller scale, true. But they are far more personal, far more damaging to myself. Everyone who could possibly know about your offense--save myself--is dead, but the people I hurt, the people I wronged? They’re here, in this compound with us right now.”

 

“Your friends are alive?” He sounds excited for her, his eyes light up and he leans down like he means to kiss her, but she holds him back. 

 

“Yes, they’re alive. And everytime I see them, everytime I look on their faces I will have resign myself to the fact that I left them to die, knowing full well that death was the most likely end for them. And they know that too. I haven’t spoken to them about it yet, but I suspect that they will inform me as much. We are the same Kylo Ren, only you acted out of love for your fellow soldiers, out of a long and tumultuous past. I acted out of pure selfishness. _I didn’t want to die._ So I left the people I love to face what I feared most.” She is shaking by the end of it. Her hold on Kylo’s chin is lost in all but image as her fingers quiver against his skin, he could break it by just shifting his head. She has told him everything now. _No secrets_. Well, not everything, but enough to leave her winded and close to tears as she waits for him to respond. He doesn’t so she says it again, more quietly this time, less certain of this assertion, “We are the same.” 

 

The beat of nothing goes on for a second too long and tears well in her eyes. He’s going to reject her now, she’s sure of it. Not only has she read his most personal thoughts, but she had the gall to be presumptive about them. To inject her own wants into his traumatizing past, to turn the narrative in her own favor. She bites her lip and looks away as hot, fat tears roll over her cheeks and drip off of her chin. She fights hard to suppress the sobs. He’s still holding her, looking into her eyes, searching for something. She looks down, attempting to shove him away from her, but he won’t allow it. 

 

“No.” He says, finally.

 

“No what?” She manages to squeak.

 

“Stop crying,” He commands, and it reminds her of their first days together in the garage, how forceful he had been at times. “Rey, there’s nothing to cry for. It’s all over, it’s all done.” 

 

“I just--”

 

“No excuses,” He pulls her tight to his chest, pressing her face into his shoulder, “No more crying. We’re safe, and alive, and together. That’s all that matters.”

 

Rey feels him press a gentle kiss to her hair, one hand cupping the small of her back, the other crushing her to his body, She can feel where his ribs poke through his skin, that morbid xylophone she had seen at the prison hasn’t yet been obscured by new muscle and fat. She sobs again, losing what little calm she had managed to garner as all of the pain of nearly losing him floods her mind again. 

 

“It’s alright,” he soothes, walking them back towards the bed so they can sit, “I’m here. I’m here and we are the same.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, early upload. Originally I was going to make this chapter longer, but I felt that adding anything else might negate what took place between Kylo and Rey, so I cut it short. Which is why this is going up a little early btw.
> 
> Thanks for reading <3


	17. Skins

After they have both calmed down Rey flicks the baby monitor back on and wanders out into the hallway, searching for Leia and the doctor. Kylo knows her, Harter Kalonia, and he very likely knows some of the other survivors in the compound as well. He did grow up around here after all. She hopes he won’t lash out at anyone else, he has promised to behave himself. He doesn’t have to be loving towards his mother but Rey does expect civility towards the woman who is taking the both of them in.

 

The two women are in the next room over. Both of them are obviously tense, sitting rigidly in matching leather chairs. Looking at a baby monitor that had--until moments ago--been inactive.

 

“It’s okay now,” Rey’s lips quirk, “He’s calmed down now, says he’ll talk.”

 

“...about?” Leia queries hopefully. Rey’s demeanor falls at the question. This poor woman just wants her son back. The son whose destruction she had contributed to, knowingly or not. 

 

“About our current situation.” Rey explains, “I think for now it’s best if we leave the past where it belongs, behind us.” 

 

Doctor Kalonia nods in agreement, “She’s right Leia. Emotions will certainly run high without dredging up bad memories. For now it’s best that we get their story and then begin to plan our assault on the prison.” 

 

Leia shakes her head, chuckling to herself with dark humor, “The memories have already been dredged, Harter. But I suppose you’re right, Hux is our main priority. Let’s go.” 

 

Once the questions have begun the lies flow too smoothly from their lips. It’s almost disturbing how the two of them can spin such emotion laden memories into a long series of falsehoods. Kylo had been in Jacksonville, North Carolina at the time of the initial outbreak, on leave with his Army buddies. He even throws in a little faux tale of a shirts versus skins game between Army men and Marines at the nearby base. A good touch, Rey thinks. Once the virus had reached him--which hadn’t taken long--he’d been deployed south to Atlanta in a last ditch effort to dispatch the growing hordes. It had failed, and he had reluctantly abandoned his post when the rest of the military had pulled out of Georgia. He had decided that he would go to the CDC and find answers for himself.

 

In this tale he never made it to the CDC, he had found the building to be a pile of burned out rubble. On his way out of the city he had found Rey, collapsed on the side of the road and dying of infection. 

 

From here they don’t lie as blatantly, most of the falsehoods are by omission. They give a vague outline of their journey across the south, but Rey makes sure to mention the family they had encountered in Mississippi, trying to score sympathy points. Then they begin the more detailed explanation of their stay at, and escape from, Hux’s prison. It’s a difficult ordeal to recount, near agonizing at certain points. Kylo’s torture, Rey’s impermanent but frightening blindness, the seemingly endless days of anesthetic that had kept her from going to him. The people she had killed on the way out.

 

They both blanche when she mentions the four men she had killed. Rey can still remember his words, so awe filled and terrified as they had limped past the corpses, the bounty of her handiwork. _“What have I done to you?”_ They echo in her skull now, beating on her eardrums. How had he not known? He changes everything. She would give up anything, do anything, so long as it keeps that man alive. 

 

It’s once they reach the cabin that Kylo’s memory blanks out. He remembers nothing after being laid across that sleeping bag. Not even the blood poisoning. Scratch that, from the way his eyes glint when he glances at her as she details the following day of watching him die, she suspects he remembers the sex. _Of course he remembers the sex._ She leaves that part out. They don’t need to know about it. She also doesn’t mention the journal, of course. But it’s a struggle not to glance over to where the messenger bag sits on her bed. 

 

Once they have recounted the full story Leia starts to prod for specifics on the prison; the layout, the level of security, locations of key people within. The most Rey can offer is that security had seemed lax, though she doubts that would be the case now. 

 

“Thank you,” Leia finally says, slumped in Kalonia’s desk chair. She looks absolutely exasperated. Clearly Rey hadn’t given her what she wanted, “This has been very helpful.” A tight lipped lie. She’s clearly trying not to upset them.

 

“No it wasn’t.” Kylo deadpans bluntly, “We all know it wasn’t. You have no more information about the place than when we started.” 

 

“I…” Leia pales a bit as she looks at her son, like she’s finally seeing what Rey has been telling her the entire time. Ben is gone. “You’re right, but you still offered up all that you had to me, despite the emotional distress it caused, so I still thank you.” 

 

“You’re welcome,” Rey smiles sweetly, laying her hand over Kylo’s where they sit beside each other on his bed. _Stop being antagonistic, you ass_. She attempts to communicate silently. He seems to understand, because he remains quiet.

 

Leia nods, glancing between the two of them, “I’ll leave the two of you for the night then.” She stands and inclines her head at Kalonia before she leaves, “Harter.”

 

“Leia.” The doctor responds as she opens the door and ushers the woman out. 

 

Once Leia has gone Kalonia smiles kindly and points to the clock ticking on the far wall, “Well, well. It’s quite late isn’t it?” She’s right, it’s half past nine. “I’ll take my leave then as well, and have dinner sent up, of course.”

 

They say their goodbyes, pleasant, if not a bit awkward, and Kalonia grabs the baby monitor on her way out. Something Rey is abundantly grateful for, she has a feeling the woman knows what she and Kylo will get up to tonight, and she’d prefer it if the good doctor weren’t forced to listen in. And then Kylo and Rey are alone again. 

 

“I haven’t had real food in…” he attempts to count the days on his fingers, but he must have the same issue she does when it comes to accounting for the time spent at the prison, because he quickly gives up and finishes, “...fucking forever. I can’t wait.” 

 

Rey smirks and leans into him pressing her lips to his throat, “Don’t get too excited,” she murmurs into his skin, “It’s not great, to be honest. Doesn’t even compare to your field rations, which is saying something.” 

 

He scoffs, feigning offence, “My field rations were _great_ , thank you kindly.” 

 

Their food is delivered by a flustered Rose, who is polite enough, but rushes out rather quickly after a few pleasantries are exchanged. They eat the granola, nondescript soup, and staling bread in amicable silence, Rey sitting between his legs and picking at her own food as he scarfs his. She pretends not to be hungry, and offers him her leftovers. She still remembers how his ribs had protruded through that hospital gown when he embraced her.

 

“I’m surprised your stomach hasn’t shrunk to the size of a walnut,” she quips as he polishes off the rest of their food. 

 

He chuckles, tossing their used utensils off to the side, “Don’t underestimate me. I’m unstoppable in the face of a good meal.” 

 

“I noticed,” She giggles as she lets herself fall into his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist. They’re finally alone, well fed, and no longer in any immediate emotional distress. It’s sobering, and also incredibly intimidating. She’s never been in the presence of this man before when she didn’t resent him, or one of them wasn’t under intense duress. This feels so _mundane_ , and she doesn’t know how to act. 

 

So she attempts to lead them back into the familiar, “How did Hux recognize you? You said it’s been years since you’ve been here.”

 

Kylo seems surprised that _this_ is what she wants to talk about, but he humors her, to an extent. “He moved here during my sophomore year, we hung out sometimes. Smoked weed and shit. When we first got to the prison his guys _didn’t_ recognize me. They were planning to kill me right away, but then Hux showed up and saw an opportunity.” He frowns, “Do we have to talk about this?”

 

“No, of course not.” He’s right, she’s pretty sure she knows what happened to Kylo after Hux’s discovery anyways. She doesn’t want to know in any further detail, her heart couldn’t handle it. 

 

And then it feels awkward again, as they sit, embracing loosely in silence. What do normal people talk about? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t feel normal anymore. Too much has happened. 

 

“This...is strange,” she says finally, breaking the silence between the two of them.

 

He huffs and tilts his face downward, touching their foreheads together, “And why is that?” 

 

Rey flushes at the way his eyes smolder, “I--um…” she stutters over her words.

 

Luckily Kylo is there to take the initiative, and he doesn’t seem interested in talking. He takes her jaw between his forefinger and thumb and pulls her lips to his own in a crushing kiss. It’s deep and intense and she can already tell where this is going. One of his hands slides under her shirt and over her side, palming her bare breast beneath it as his lips work away from her own and to her jaw. 

 

She falls into it for a brief and blissful moment, the kneading of his hand against her flesh, the feel of his lips ravishingly her throat. He easily pushes her t-shirt up and over her head, exposing her small fine breasts to him, and she keens as he takes one of her rosy nipples into his mouth. 

 

“Oh god,” she gasps, carding her fingers through his hair as one of his large hands slips below the waistband of her leggings. His fingers find her slick and hot, and he begins to kiss is way down her midsection, between her breasts, past her navel and over her bandages, all the way down to her hips. He places a gentle kiss on each hipbone and starts to tug at her leggings. 

 

“Wait!” Rey cries out, overcome by a sudden wave of self consciousness. When was the last time she shaved? How long has it been? How ragamuffin she must look, haggard and covered in scars, legs and privates unshaven. Why is she suddenly so nervous? She's slept with him before, in a similar state to boot. It shouldn't matter. 

 

But it does. Because they are no longer fighting for their lives, they are no longer fucking to numb the pain of loss or guilt, or out of fear of losing the other. They’re having sex like normal people do, and Rey doesn't know how. She's never had sex just for the hell of it before. 

 

“What's wrong?” Kylo has removed himself from her entirely, maintaining his physical proximity, but being careful not to touch her. 

 

Rey glances away, unnerved by the domesticity of the situation. They could be any couple, any two people in the world in this moment. “...ihaventshaved.” She mumbles quickly under her breath. 

 

“What?” 

 

She speaks up, just loud enough for him to hear, “I said I haven't shaved.” She bites the inside of her cheek as she feels her face begin to flush. What a stupid insecurity to have. He's been inside her before, for god's sake, has seen her in this exact state and proceeded without complaint. 

 

His eyebrows shoot near to his hairline and he throws his head back and laughs, “You-” He manages, “--you think I'm bothered by a little body hair, kid?” 

 

She sits up, pulling her knees up to her bare chest to hide her breasts from him, he's not helping. “Don't call me that.” She snaps, perturbed by the endearment, if it can even be called that. It had sounded a tad too condescending for her liking. 

 

“What?” He asks mockingly, leaning forward so his breath ghosts her face, “You’re twenty, you are a kid.” 

 

Rey bites her lip, goaded so easily by his words. She reaches out and gropes his hard cock through the thin paper of his gown, giving it a squeeze, “Would a 'kid' be able to do this to you?” She teases, licking her lower lip, emboldened with the knowledge that she did this to him. 

 

He smirks at her, “No. And for the record, I don't mind a little body hair. Women _should_ have some, in my opinion. It's there for a reason.” 

 

“Good to know,” Rey retreats again, her back pressed firm to the wall. She feels abundantly awkward again at the mention of body hair, and she also remembers how long it's been since either of them have really bathed. “But I stink like a dying animal maybe we should--”

 

“Bullshit,” Kylo snaps, “Both of us reek, it’s fine. If you don’t want to do this just tell me. Stop making excuses.” He bites at her. 

 

“I--I’m sorry, I just--”

 

He leans forward over her knees and crushes his lips to hers again. Kissing her so fervently that she forgets what she had been worried about to begin with. She relaxes, her legs falling back down to the mattress and her arms winding around the back of his neck as she kisses him back hungrily. She winds her fingers into his hair as he lays her down flat on her back, one large hand dropping to her waistband again. 

 

He breaks away, much to her dismay, and murmurs sultry over her lips, “You’re beautiful and you smell fine, Rey. Let me take care of you.” 

 

She bites her lip and nods eagerly, the warmth at the apex of her thighs becoming nigh unbearable as he presses his knee between them. “Please.” She gasps, and he obliges.

 

He peels away her leggings quickly, tossing them behind him and taking a moment to appreciate what is now exposed to the open air.

 

Rey shifts uncomfortably under his stare, desperate to just have him inside of her already. “Kylo--”

 

But he’s already risen back up onto his knees, shucking the thin robe off and exposing his beaten, scarred body to her. She knows he doesn’t want to hear it, her pity, her grief over what he had experienced. So she ignores the scabs and yellowing bruises, the way his ribs press to his skin, and instead her attention drops to his cock, standing proud between his thighs. It’s good to see one thing hasn’t changed.

 

_Wait...oh shit_.

 

“ _Condoms._ Rey groans, throwing her forearm up and over her eyes, blocking the view of her very own personal Adonis in a desperate attempt to control her own arousal, “We don’t have any fucking condoms.” God damnit, she wants him so badly and they don’t have any fucking condoms. 

 

Kylo glances down at himself, giving his dick a few strokes, and chuffs, “Do we even need them at this point?”

 

Oh. That’s right. She hasn’t explained the pregnancy situation to him yet. So much for ‘No secrets between them’. She supposes that now isn’t the best time, and instead explains briefly, and a bit sharply, “Yes. Of course we need condoms.”

 

He sighs and slumps down onto the bed beside her. Driving her to near madness as his erect cock presses into her hip. 

 

“God,” she moans, reaching down and running a finger through her own slickness, “I want you _so badly_.”

 

Kylo grins, pressing a kiss to her shoulder, “There are _other_ things that we can do, Rey.” His voice drips with innuendo, and he presses his erection a bit harder into her side. “Want me to show you?”

 

“I--” She hadn’t thought of that, ‘other things’, but Kylo has his face between her legs before she can utter more than a word in response. 

 

“You have such a nice cunt,” he groans, letting his fingers trace feather light over her folds as his breath ghosts her tender flesh, “The last time I did this I was in a rush, this time I plan to take my time.”

 

He smiles up at her, and Rey flushes and glances away bashfully, intent to never look back. That is, until he puts his mouth on her. It’s a slow and languid pace he sets as he licks her, up and down, up and down, never quite entering her with his tongue, never quite touching her clit. It’s absolutely maddening.

 

“Shit, Kylo!” She hisses, reaching down and tangling her fingers into his ebony hair, pressing him harder against her, “ _Please._ ” 

 

He pulls back, easily breaking her hold on him, and looks up and over her abdomen, into her eyes. What stares at her is an animal, a beast of pure lust. And she loves it. “Please what?” He teases, again running a single, thick finger along her needy slit.

 

“Just--just _please _!” She mewls, not sure what she wants, but wanting something, anything to ease the ache between her thighs.__

__

__He grins, and presses his finger into her in one, swift, unexpected motion. She gasps, whimpering as he curls it and the pad brushes over that perfect spot just inside of her. “Oh, oh God.”_ _

__

__“Enough?” He bites his lip, staring at her with a smoldering, knowing look in his eyes. He knows it’s not enough, a single finger doesn’t even begin to compete with his cock._ _

__

__She just whimpers, throwing her head to the side in frustration. He relents and begins to thrust his finger slowly, making her sweat and pant. Then he introduces another finger, and then another, and she’s no longer just panting, but moaning wantonly with every stroke. She’s almost there, the sound of her own wetness and his heavy breathing making sure of that, but she can’t quite peak. She’s so close to her crest, to mewling and cumming on his fingers, but she can’t quite reach it. She needs, _she needs _...___ _

____ _ _

____“P-put your--ahn!--mouth o-on me,” She demands, her fingers digging hard into the linens. She bites her lip, watching him with intense interest and even more intense lust as he looks up at her with those beautiful, sultry eyes and _grins_._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____He does as he is told, pressing his tongue to where his fingers are joined to her body and then licking _up_ , until he reaches her bud. He presses his tongue hard against it, making her arch her back and throw her head from side to side with the acute pleasure of it, and then he starts to swirl. The pattern is quick, and rough, and just what she had needs._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Her eyes shut tight, her brow scrunches and she howls as she reaches her orgasm. It’s earth shattering in intensity, and her vision goes white as shockwaves of pleasure rack her thin body. He finger fucks her through it, keeping his mouth on her until she has come back to earth. Her fingers loosening in the sheets, and her back thumping onto the mattress._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Fuck,” she gasps as he crawls back up her body, peppering kisses over her bandaged abdomen and across her chest, “I’ve never… _fuck_.” _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____She doesn’t know what to say. A simple thank you seems a bit inappropriate considering their current relationship. And then she feels it, as Kylo pulls her into his chest, wholly content to just go to sleep. His cock. Still engorged, and throbbing against her side._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Let me return the favor,” she offers, trying to sound sexy but only managing to sound insecure again. She has never sucked anyone off before. What if she does something wrong? What if she hurts him?_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____He tenses against her, “Are you sure?” He asks hesitantly._ _ _ _

____ _ _

_____No._ _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Mmhmm,” She looks up into his eyes, biting her lip seductively and nodding. His jaw clenches a bit and his fists do the same at his sides._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“You’ll just have to tell me if I’m doing it right,” she hesitates as she crawls between his legs, eyeing where his cock lays, red and thick, across his belly, “I’ve never done this before.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Rey takes him in hand, giving him a few tentative strokes before she leans in and lets her lips brush over the tip. He groans and she pulls back immediately, “Are you okay?” She rushes, “Did I do something wrong?” Oh God, oh God, she’s hurt him, she hurt him and she’s ruined--_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“No,” he grunts, “No, Rey you’re fucking perfect. Keep touching me, sweetheart.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____She bites her lip nervously and takes him back into her hand. He’s so large compared to her, even his cock in her hand makes her feel small. She leans in again, emboldened by his words, and this time she laps her tongue quickly along the veined shaft of him, earning a long moan from Kylo. She smiles against his flesh and does it again, longer this time, dragging her tongue all the way to his tip and swiping away the drop of liquid that has beaded there. It’s salty. She doesn’t mind. She focuses on the ridges under his head after that, lapping at them until he’s nearly thrashing in the sheets._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Fuck,” He groans, “God, please Rey, put it in your mouth, stop-- _shit_ \--stop teasing me.” _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____She doesn’t think, she just acts, taking the head of him between her lips and giving a hard suck. One hand sneaks up to cup his sac, and the other strokes him rhythmically as she works several more inches of his dick into her mouth. She laves her tongue up and down his shaft, curling and flicking it when she reaches his head, paying extra attention to the slit, leaving the man clawing at the sheets and struggling to resist the urge to push her down the rest of the way._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____After another moment of sucking and flicking and laving at him she feels him tense, his balls physically tighten in her hand and suddenly he’s shooting into her mouth as he moans. It’s odd tasting, almost tangy in flavor, and not entirely pleasant, but she swallows it anyways, if only to see the reverent look in his eyes when she rises up onto her knees, releasing his softening member with a wet ‘pop’, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____He looks at her through heavy lidded eyes, filled with satisfaction, and grabs her wrist, pulling her onto his bruised chest and kissing her deeply. She wonders if he can taste his own spend on her lips._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____When he pulls away he mumbles against her mouth, “That was fucking perfect.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“And I can only get better from here,” She jokes and then slinks out of the bed, searching the floor for her clothes. She tosses his robe at him, “Redress. Kalonia always comes in early. I don’t want her to get an eye full.” She pulls her leggings up and her t-shirt back over her head._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Jealous?” He jests, tugging it over his head despite the ties on the back._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Rey ignores him and crawls back into bed beside him, wrapping her arms around his midsection and pillowing her head on his chest. “I love you,” she whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to his clothed pectoral._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____His right arm comes around her waist, pulling her tighter to him, and he whispers softly, so quiet she can barely make it out over the white noise of the house, “I love you too.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Then he asks a question she has been dreading, “So you’re not pregnant I take it?”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____The words are loaded, filled with a million far more intense, more emotional queries. _Were you pregnant before?_ , _Did you miscarry because of Hux?_ , _Was there ever a baby at all? Or did Hux just use that to hurt me?__ _ _ _

____ _ _

____She could just tell him a partial truth, say she took a test and she isn’t pregnant, and then move on with their lives. He doesn’t need to know about the Plan B, that she intentionally delayed her cycle to avoid a pregnancy by him. Does he even understand how the morning after pill works? Will he think she aborted their child? Killed it in cold blood?_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Rey?”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____She stutters over her words, “I--no, I’m...I’m not pregnant.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____He rolls to face her, his brow furrowed with concern, “Why do you sound like that?”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Like what?” She returns nervously._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____His eyes narrow suspiciously, “Like you’re unsure, like you’re lying to me about something.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____She takes a deep, steadying breath, in through her nose and out through her mouth, then begins, reluctantly, “Alright, I took a test when we got here and no I’m not pregnant from the first two times we had sex, but it was impossible to tell if I was from the third time…”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____His eyes seem to lighten a bit, a flash of hope in his dark irises, and she withers a bit in his embrace. He thinks she could still be pregnant. He _wants_ her to be. “So I took a morning after pill, to make sure I wouldn’t get pregnant.” _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____His face falls and he looks away, trying to mask his disappointment. Rey can feel where his hand has balled into a fist at her side, and she knows he’s at least a _little_ angry. “...do you...understand how that works?” _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Does it matter if I do?” He snaps, releasing her entirely and rolling over to face away from her, thumping hard against the sheets. It’s a far cry from the tantrum she had expected, but it’s still not pleasant._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Yes it does.” He doesn’t respond so she begins to explain, “It delays ovulation, it gives your...um...sperm time to die before I ovulate, release an egg. I was never pregnant, I didn't terminate anything, if that’s what has you upset.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____He huffs, “No. That’s not what has me upset.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Rey rolls onto her back and crosses her arms over her chest defensively. Things had been so perfect in that post orgasmic haze, and now _this_. “What is it then?” She barks. What else would turn him into such a crabass? “In my defense we’ve talked about it before, at that house, and you seemed fine with the idea then.” _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Things are different now,” His voice has grown quiet and pained. Rey’s own anger dies down at the unadulterated ache that permeates his words, “I--when we were in that prison, they convinced me that you were pregnant, Rey. That it was a real thing. Hux used that baby against me at every turn, every time I disobeyed, every time I--” his voice cracks and a sob wracks his body, he curls in on himself._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“Kylo,” Rey whispers, wrapping her arms around his middle and pressing her face to his broad back, “Kylo, I’m so sorry.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I don’t want your pity!” He snaps, shucking her arms off of him with near violence, retreating further to his side of the bed. Rey glances away from him, tears welling in her eyes at the sting of rejection. He must hear her sniff because he rolls over, not yet deigning her worthy of his touch, but he catches her gaze and holds it. “I would’ve loved that baby, Rey. I would’ve done anything for them. Our baby.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Rey shakes her head, biting back a sob as she snipes, “There never was a baby, Kylo. I was never pregnant. And if I had been it would’ve been terrible, a cruel thing to do to a newborn, to bring them into a world like this one. There’s no guarantee I would’ve carried to term, no guarantee I would’ve survived natural childbirth. We don’t live in the future anymore, pregnancy is dangerous now. Just as dangerous as it was a thousand years ago. And even if I had somehow managed to push a baby into this world without killing us both, we’re surrounded by death and chaos and decay. It wouldn’t have been safe. It wouldn’t have been _right_. _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Kylo lays there, tears streaming over his cheeks as he stares at her, absorbing her words. “I’m sorry, Kylo.” She whimpers, “There is no baby, and there never was, no matter what Hux said. And I don’t pity you for what happened. I love you, and seeing you hurt hurts me too.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____He wraps his arms around her, crushing her to his body, “I’m sorry,” he chokes, “I shouldn’t have come at you like that. You’re right. You did the right thing.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Rey presses her face into his shoulder and has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from sobbing. “Thank you.”_ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Badaboom, it's 3:45 a.m. but here's an update because I'm a masochist. 
> 
> Just like last time I intentionally cut this one off where there was originally more, because I wanted the moment to sink in a bit. Kylo and Rey are growing together, and that's important enough to warrant it's own chapter. 
> 
> Also I remade my Tumblr, it's [oscarius](https://oscarius.tumblr.com). (That's a link). I'm using it as an art/fic dump. Feel free to stop by and shoot me an ask or a message. <3  
> 


	18. Pail

The next morning Rey wakes to Kalonia standing in the doorway, leaning in the frame and eyeing the two of them with one eyebrow cocked high. Rey flushes and slides out of the bed, wincing as her ankle initially takes on too much of her weight. 

 

“At least we weren’t naked,” She supplies meekly, going to sit on the other bed. 

 

“I suppose I should thank you for that,” The doctor quips, and then approaches her, motioning for Rey to lift her shirt, “I want to take a look at your abdomen.” 

 

Rey does as she is told, lifting the fabric up so it is bunched around her chest, exposing the clean white wrappings that encompass her entire stomach. Kalonia unwraps them with gentle hands, the touch of someone who has been healing the hurts of others for many years, something Doc had lacked. Once the bandages are set to the side she brushes her gloved thumbs lightly over the wounds, testing the scabs and fresh skin there. 

 

“These are healing nicely,” She says, pushing Rey’s t-shirt back down for her, “You can leave today. I'll send Finn up with breakfast and he'll show you around, you can take your pick of the empty shanties,” her eyes flick quickly over to Kylo, “You should probably choose one that’s set away from the others.” The insinuation of her words leaves Rey’s cheeks pinking again. 

 

“Okay.” 

 

“He’ll also bring a change of clothes.” She offers, removing her gloves and tossing them into a small wastebin on her way to her desk. “Kylo will have to stay here another few days though, no more than three. I want to make sure he doesn’t relapse, infections can be quite tricky.” 

 

Rey purses her lips, she doubts Kylo will enjoy the separation, but it will give her the opportunity to speak with Finn and Poe alone. Doctor Kalonia shuffles through one of her desk drawers, humming until she finds what she needs. She produces a small cannister and hands it to Rey, “Here, it’s an antiseptic salve. Just apply this to your abdomen before sleep until all of the abrasions have healed, then you should be in the clear. It might burn a bit, but if you don’t use it, _I’ll know_.” She threatens half jokingly.

 

“Alright, thank you doctor, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all of this,” Her gaze shifts past the aging woman to where Kylo still slumbers, laying on his side, one arm still slung out as though it hangs around her waist. If it weren’t for this woman Kylo would be dead. They’d both be dead. “I really, really can’t.” 

 

Kalonia smiles widely and pulls Rey into a gentle hug, “There’s no need to thank me dear, I’ve taken an oath.” 

 

_An oath_. 

 

Doc had said something along those lines. 

 

Rey shoves the memory down deep and separates from the doctor. The woman offers with her ever present kindness, “Do you need anything else before I fetch Finn?” 

 

Rey pauses for a moment, biting her lip. Is it really appropriate for her to ask this woman for condoms? Will she report it back to Leia? But more than she dreads the thought of Leia being aware of their midnight activities--she knows the woman suspects, but for her to know explicitly that she and Kylo are having sex is mortifying--she longs to lay with Kylo again, like they had in that house. She wants to be chest to chest with him, feel his hips snapping against her own, she yearns for the stretch of him inside her. So she shrugs her reservations aside and asks, tactfully, “Um...Might you have some,” she clicks her tongue cheekily, “Contraceptives laying around? I really don’t need a repeat of the whole pregnancy scare thing, it was quite grating.”

 

Kalonia chuckles and nods, clearly trying to contain a grin, “Yes, I might have some laying about,” she shuffles over to her cabinet, opening it and revealing an impressive store of medical supplies for someone living in the post apocalypse. Rey glimpses boxes of ibuprofen and antacids, burn cream and antibiotics. 

 

“Where do you get all of that?” She asks. 

 

Kalonia glances over her shoulder, her nimble fingers pausing over the many brightly colored boxes for a moment, “Supply runs. It takes a lot to keep an operation of this size functioning, so Leia sends scouts out regularly to scavenge. It’s becoming more and more difficult though, they have to range further and further each time.” She turns back to the cupboard, shifting through the items until she finds what she wants. A box of condoms, thank heavens. “We’ve lost three scouts out there, recently too,” She laments as she hands the box over to Rey, “Two of them were found on later runs, but the last one we never found. Poor boy.” 

 

“Oh,” Rey isn’t sure what to say. It makes sense that they would need to continuously increase their radius, everything has already been looted to the point of barrenness over a month after the world ended. Perhaps they should take this as a sign that it’s time to move, to form a convoy and leave this place behind. Three dead scouts is two too many, in her opinion. 

 

“You can take half of those,” the woman offers, “But I’ll be keeping the rest. That’s my only box. It’s a pack of one hundred, and fifty should be plenty, no?” She raises her eyebrows and smirks. 

 

Why does this woman seem so intent on making her blush this morning? Rey fumbles with the package, flustered under the doctor’s amused eyes. She manages to finagle it open, and removes roughly half of the foil packets, clutching them tight in her hand. When Kylo is finally released they won’t leave their shanty for a week, not if she has anything to say about it. 

 

Kalonia takes the box back and tucks it into her cabinet. Rey takes note of where exactly it is; the bottom right hand side, behind a bottle of sleep aids. Just in case fifty won’t be enough.

 

“Do you need anything else?” 

 

“Nah,” Rey grins as she shoves the packets into her messenger bag, “Thank you again, though. For everything.” 

 

The woman nods, “Of course.” On her way out the door she calls over her shoulder, “Finn will be up in a moment with breakfast for the two of you, and changes of clothes. You can go with him, but Kylo stays. Can you handle that? Or do I need to send some muscle with Finn to keep that brute down?” 

 

When Rey laughs it’s musical like wind chimes, she feels so light here, safe and happy. “No, don’t worry. I can handle him. He’s no match for me and my womanly wiles.” 

 

The doctor laughs and shuts the door gently behind herself. 

 

And they are alone again. Rey slinks over to Kylo’s bed and prods carefully at his shoulder, trying to wake him as kindly as possible. He stirs and groans, throwing one arm over his eyes, but she can see him peeking at her from underneath.

 

“It’s time to wake up,” she says softly, taking his hand in both of her own, “Food will--ah!”

 

He twists roughly in the sheets and catches Rey’s arm in a calloused palm, tugging her down and onto the bed with him. She squeals and lands unceremoniously on her stomach, the air knocked from her lungs. “Wha-” She sputters, “What was that for?” 

 

She swats at his hands as they wrap around her, pulling her to him, but he ignores her and envelopes her in an embrace despite her flailing, her cheek smushing awkwardly against his chest. “What are you doing?”

 

She feels him nuzzle his nose into her hair and inhale deeply of her scent. She doesn't know why, they both smell terrible. 

 

“I love you.” He says, like it’s a reasonable explanation for ambushing her.

 

“Cool,” she gives him a half hearted shove, not entirely wanting to part from him. He relents by loosening his arms, but he keeps them slung around her waist, a silent threat looming in his playful eyes that if she tries to escape he’ll entrap her again. “I need to talk to you about today.”

 

He licks his chapped lips, obviously only half paying attention to her. She’s angled just so that he can catch a glimpse down her collar. She snorts and shifts, tugging the shirt up over her clavicle. “ _Today_ ,” She continues, “I’m leaving for a bit, to go and stake out our place on the lawn, and you’re going to stay here so that Doctor Kalonia can keep an eye on you.”

 

His arms tense and then tighten around her waist, “I don’t like that,” he growls low, and god if the timbre of his voice doesn’t make her want to tackle him onto the bed, but she restrains herself. 

 

“I had a feeling you wouldn’t,” She manages to wiggle free from his grasp and lands gracefully on the floor. She puts her hands on her hips and smiles at him, cocking her head tauntingly, “But you’re just going to have to sit this one out, doctor’s orders.” 

 

“No.” He deadpans, and all of her jovial mannerisms fall away. He’s dead serious. Of course he is, she had expected this. 

 

Rey knows reassuring words will do little to convince him, so she goes with her contingency plan; bribery. She sashays over to her messenger bag and pulls out one of the conspicuous little foil packets, holding it up and waving it lazily back and forth in the air. His eyes follow it like a dog’s might a choice steak. 

 

“That’s what I thought,” Rey chuffs, licking her lips and clicking her tongue, “Let’s broker a deal. You stay here and behave yourself for the next three days so the doctor can make sure you’ve recovered--I’ll eat meals with you and everything, be here as often as I can--and in return, in three days time, I’ll let you fuck me into the dirt floor of our new shanty.”

 

That he even has to take the time to think about it astounds her, she can hear him swallow from where she stands, see the way his adam’s apple bobs as his dark, lustful eyes flit between her and the condom. 

 

“Do we have a deal?” She lets the imposing package hang loosely between her index and middle finger and raises a single chestnut eyebrow at him. 

 

“Fine.” He huffs and looks away, scowling like a petulant child. Rey has to look away to keep from laughing, it’s so comical how she can bring this man near to tears with nothing but a condom and the promise of sex. 

 

Rey is startled into dropping the condom as the door opens and Finn waltzes in. He’s carrying a covered tray, the kind they use in hospitals, over one shoulder like a waiter at a restaurant. The ear to ear grin that splits his beautiful face warms Rey’s heart. It’s been so long since she’s seen that smile, too long. 

 

She quickly recovers and scampers for the condom, grabbing it and clutching it tight in her palm. He doesn’t need to see that. Kylo gives her a cocky lopsided smile and she wants to punch him in the shoulder for it. 

 

“Breakfast!” Finn sing-songs as he sets the tray at the foot of the bed and lifts the cover, “I hope you enjoy.” He jokes, and Rey laughs along when she catches sight of the meager meal before them. Dry granola again, this time with a spoonful of peanut butter on the side of each bowl--it looks like Kylo has two while she only has one--and two glasses of water. 

 

Rey shrugs and goes for it, taking the bowl with less peanut butter, and perches on the edge of the bed between where Finn stands and Kylo sits. She takes a spoon in the hand that obscures the condom and begins to eat with gusto. It’s bland, and the peanut butter sticks to the roof of her mouth, but the water easily rectifies that. And besides, she’s hungry. Kylo seems more hesitant, eyeing the food warily for a long moment before he too takes a bowl and begins to eat. 

 

Finn is still smiling bright, “Good?” he asks Rey between bites.

 

“It’s fine,” She says, not bothering to look up from the bowl. She’s already halfway through it. 

 

Finn turns to Kylo, “I’m Finn,” he offers a friendly hand, “Rey and I knew each other before all of this happened.” 

 

Kylo, much to Rey’s pleasant surprise, takes Finn’s hand and shakes it firmly, “Nice to meet you.” He replies, amiable, after swallowing down a bite of granola. “Rey has spoken highly of you.” 

 

“All lies, I promise,” Finn jokes, bumping Rey’s knee playfully, “I’m a terrible person, I assure you.” He pulls a bundle of clothing from under his arm and sets it on the bed next to Rey. “Here, clean clothes for the both of you,” he looks to Kylo, “They might be a little small on you, they’re Poe’s.” 

 

Kylo’s eyes drift from where Finn had bumped her and then back up to the man himself. Kylo gives him a tight lipped smile and manages a strained, “I’ll be fine.” 

 

Rey’s eyes roll near to the back of her skull at his apparent jealousy. She shoves her half empty bowl aside, intentionally leaving the rest for Kylo, and jumps lightly to her feet. “Let me change clothes real quick.” She gathers the clothing and smiles at her friend. She goes to set her spoon down, forgetting the conspicuous little packet pressed tight to her palm, and feels the blood drain from her face as it drops with the utensil. 

 

Finn has conveniently looked away, taking the fumble in stride like he does everything else, suddenly very interested in something outside of the window. Rey recovers smoothly, scooping the condom back up and shoving it into her waistband. She scurries to the bathroom, trying to hide her flush of embarrassment. As she changes she can only imagine that Kylo’s face is the perfect picture of possession, pride, and divine assholery at the moment, now that Finn has seen the condom they wholeheartedly intend to use later. 

 

Rey changes quickly, not wanting to leave the men alone for any extended period of time, who knows what Kylo might try to pull if he sees Finn as a threat. Finn had brought her a pair of jean capris and a simple gray tank top, after she has clothed herself she tugs her boots on over bare feet and strides back through the bathroom door, condom tucked safely into her pocket. Much to her relief the men are standing silent and uncomfortable; exactly as she had left them. She’s certain from the put-out look on Finn’s face that he had tried to converse, but Kylo had shut him down. 

 

She acknowledges Finn first, really just to irritate Kylo, “Doctor Kalonia said you would take me down to pick out a shanty?” 

 

Finn grins and nods, his posture relaxing as he turns from Kylo and starts for the door, waving for her to follow, “Yep! Let’s go, I want to catch up, too.”

 

“Of course!” Rey laughs and skips after him, stopping momentarily to throw a warning look at Kylo, “Behave yourself, I’ll be back for dinner, alright?” 

 

Kylo nods, frowning, and continues to pick at his food. She leaves him like that, shutting the door behind herself and Finn. And then she is with her friend again, just like it had been before, like it should’ve been all along, if not for her. But she isn’t given the chance to speak, Finn pipes up first, before she can begin to voice her apology.

 

“Who is that guy?” He asks, his voice ripe with suspicion.

 

“His name is--”

 

“I know what his name is. I meant _who_ is he? How did you meet? Why did you stay with him? Are you two… you know… a thing? Beyond sex I mean, I saw the condom.” 

 

Rey looks nervously around them as they move through the hallways of the manor, this information isn’t meant for others to hear. It belongs to her and Kylo, and only them. But she owes Finn an explanation so she tries to convey what exists between she and the sullen man they had left behind in the makeshift hospital room, “Yes, we’re together. I saved his life and he saved mine.”

 

Finn huffs, holding the front door open for her as they exit the foyer and out onto the front lawn turned settlement. It smells foul, like human waste and rot, but he ignores the way her nose scrunches and snarks, near incredulous, “Is that really all you’re going to tell me? That’s all you have to say?”

 

Her mouth falls open, she wants to offer him more, to tell him the whole truth of it. How she had nearly died of infection, how Kylo had saved her life and offered her passage to California. How he had saved her life _again_. How he had kissed her, and made love to her, and made the agony and guilt more bearable. How they had been ambushed and tortured and nearly killed at the hands of sadistic maniac. _How she loves Kylo more than the air she needs to breathe._ But she can’t. None of those things are for him, for anybody but she and her lover. She just shakes her head no, sinking a bit when she sees his brows furrow, when he takes a step ahead of her so they won’t have to speak further. 

 

It shocks her how much has changed, how in less than a month she has come to trust a man who had been a total stranger upon their meeting--an adversary, even--over her best friend. Before she had met Kylo nothing was off limits, between she and Finn there had been no secrets. But this is not his to know, and it never will be. In the last weeks of scraping, fighting to keep her head above water, she has evolved on a fundamental level. She isn’t the girl who fled Gainesville with her friends, she isn’t even the girl who had abandoned them at a CDC containment camp. She is something else entirely now, with the things she has seen, the things she has done. 

 

_We are the same._ Kylo’s words ring true. 

 

Finn leads her to a small tin and plywood hut towards the back of compound. There is only two feet of space between it and the tall, spiked wall that surrounds the compound. It is perfect in the way it is set apart from the other shanties. It will give them some semblance of privacy. 

 

“I picked this one out for you,” Finn explains, though he still seems distant, “The doctor said you might want one that was set away from the others.”

 

Rey nods, “Thank you.” She passes through the low cut door, having to crouch near to her knees to fit. It’s small on the inside, just large enough for Kylo and herself to sleep in. It stands about four feet tall at it’s highest point, and the tin is rusted and flaking. There are two sleeping bags laid out across the floor, along with a metal water pail. She looks over the rim. Empty. 

 

She turns to where Finn has stuck his head inside, “It’s not much,” he comments, “But none of them are, and it keeps the rain off.” 

 

Rey nods in agreement, “Home sweet home.” She jokes, thwacking one finger against the wall and wincing as the metal rings out in protest. She drops her messenger bag in the corner. “Do you want to come in for a minute…” She offers reluctantly, she’d really rather leave it all behind her, let the guilt fade away without ever confronting its source, but she can’t, it wouldn’t be fair to Poe or Finn or Jess, “I… there are some things I need to talk to you about.” 

 

Finn gives a half smile, still put off by her earlier denial, “Later, I have some work to do. But Poe and I were planning on dropping by tonight, after sunset, to throw a little housewarming party for you.”

 

Her shoulders drop with relief, she’ll be able to put it off for a few more hours. Inevitable as it may be, those hours give her time to prepare herself. Wait. Poe. Just Poe?

 

“Where’s Jess?” She blurts as she shoves past him, back out into the open air. She already knows what Finn will say, her head is already spinning with the unrelenting grief of it. 

 

Finn swallows hard, his lips parting as his eyes lock onto the ground, “I--Jess… she’s gone, Rey.”

 

Rey kneels, letting her head drop between her knees to stop the world from kaleidoscoping around her, “ _How?_ ” She pleads, shutting her eyes tight and praying that it isn’t her fault. But of course it’s her fault. No matter what Finn says it will have been her fault. 

 

“Bitten.” Finn chokes out, “You were right when you said we shouldn’t go to the containment camp. They couldn’t keep control of the sick, one got out and…” He can’t continue, he is cut off by his own sob. 

 

Rey doesn’t need any further elaboration, she can imagine what happened next with disturbing clarity. If she had been there… _if only she had been there._

 

“I’m sorry,” she chokes, “I’m so sorry.” 

 

Finn kneels beside her, having regained some composure. He wraps an arm around her shoulders, giving her a reassuring squeeze, “You have nothing to apologize for, Rey.”

 

She presses her knuckles hard into her orbitals, distracting from the way her chest seems to be compressing in on itself, forcing the air from her lungs, “I have _everything_ to apologize for.” His silence speaks volumes. He doesn’t understand. She isn’t ready to tell him yet, she’s sure Poe will before they come to visit her tonight. 

 

She needs to be alone. “Leave me,” she asks brokenly, refusing to look up and into the eyes of this man she has wounded so grievously, “I need space.”

 

“I--” He stands but keeps a tentative hand on her shoulder, hesitant to leave her hurting like she is. 

 

“ _Please_.” She begs, slamming one fist down onto the dry, cracking earth. How long has it been since it’s rained here?

 

“Just… come find me if you need anything, alright? Poe and I will be back tonight…” He lingers for another moment, watching as she crawls back into her new home and then for a moment longer. 

 

She hears when he finally leaves, feels that his eyes are no longer on her, and she slumps into the nylon of her sleeping bag. Laying on her stomach, she pulls the material up and around her to obscure her face from the view of anyone who might pass by. 

 

She cries. 

 

She cries for Jess and her untimely death. She weeps for Finn, how he has kept his kind heart despite the hardship he has endured. She mourns for Poe, for all he has seen happen to the students he had been so close to. She sobs for Kylo, Ben, and the childhood he had lost, for the drugs that had nearly killed him, for the murders he had been party to. She cries for all of them and more, for the women held captive in Hux’s prison, for the family they buried in the damp, dank Mississippi earth, all of her heartache pouring from her in a single, despondent wave. 

 

Rey doesn't know how long she lays there afterward. Lethargic, unable to do anything beyond trace her finger through the dust and dirt of their floor. 

 

_Their floor._

 

The sleeping bag shifts around her, and a strong arm wraps around her waist, pulling her side into his front.

 

Kylo. 

 

“What’er you doing here?” Her words are muddled as she burrows her face into the nylon, refusing to look at him. Feigning apathy in the face of her worried lover. 

 

He says nothing, just lets his fingers trace over her back, smoothing them up and down her spine, swirling just above her tailbone and then doubling back. She shuts her eyes tight and focuses on it, the feel of his hand, gentle through her shirt. 

 

Her breathing eventually steadies, her panic subsiding as he shifts closer, close enough that she can feel his breath ghost the nape of her neck. She cants her head slightly to the left, not enough to reveal her whole face to him, but enough to let one swollen brown eye peek at him. 

 

His pale face is just millimeters away from her, his dark eyes watching her intently. She notes the mole perpendicular to his right nostril, and wonders how she hadn't noticed it before this moment. 

 

“Are you okay now?” He asks plainly.

 

“I'm fine,” she lies, “I was fine, you didn't need to come. You shouldn't even be here.” 

 

“Don't try to make this about me,” he warns, halfheartedly.

 

“Who let you out?” She questions, rolling onto her side and pressing an accusatory finger into his chest. He's supposed to be with the doctor, being watched closely for any signs of a relapse. 

 

“Finn came back up and told Harter he thought you needed to be monitored further, said something was wrong. I insisted that I be allowed to speak to you.” 

 

“Insisted.” Rey muses, “Alright. You've seen that I'm okay, time to go back.” 

 

Kylo wraps his arms around her waist, letting his fingers trace over her spine again, “I've seen the exact opposite of that. You’re not okay, and you know it. What the hell is going on, Rey?” 

 

She twists away from him, rolling up into a sitting position and watching him warily through the narrow space between them. “I'm fine.” 

 

Kylo sighs and reaches for her again, easily catching her despite her attempts to dodge. He tugs her into his chest, crushing their lips together with force. It's messy, teeth, and tongue, and noses mashing together, but it's not dispassionate. This is how they reassure one another, with actions rather than words, and when he breaks away--swollen lipped and panting--Rey tells him. _No secrets._

 

“Jess is dead.” It's blunt and cold. She's already begun to distance herself from it, despite the guilt that crushes her beneath its weight. She keeps her face pressed into his neck, letting him hold her close so she doesn't have to witness his reaction. But she guesses, from the way his body shifts only slightly, that it's measured. He is treading lightly, unsure of what to say. 

 

“I'm sorry.” He presses a gentle kiss into her crown. 

 

“You didn't know her, you don't care.” She knows that she's right, his apology had been half hearted at best, disingenuous at worst. 

 

There is a long stretch of silence between the two of them following that, a period during which Kylo seems to be thinking deeply, from the way his fingers tap against her hips, the way his brow is furrowed when she finally spares him a glance. 

 

“No,” he says, an air of finality pervading his voice. 

 

“No?” She snaps back, shoving at his chest, attempting to wiggle free from him. 

 

But he won't let her, his arms only tighten at her waist, his eyes narrowing in warning as he pulls her flush to him. “No, I didn't know her, and I don't really care that she's dead.” 

 

“You--!” 

 

“But!” He snaps, cutting off her protest, “ _but_ , I care about you. I care that you’re hurting. I care that you were sobbing when I crawled in here. I don't like it when you cry.” 

 

Rey is floored, left momentarily dumb by his words. It is exactly the same impersonal, yet somehow _deeply_ personal sorrow she had felt while reading his journal. She had no connection to Williams, or Kestrel, or any other characters who had inhabited his story, she had felt no sadness for them. But for Kylo she had wept, for his pain and his pain alone. She understands. 

 

Rey winds her arms around his neck, threading nimble fingers through his hair and kissing him deeply. It's more tactful this time, slow and deliberate. When her tongue traces his lower lip he grants her entrance, and they stay like that for a long while; kissing, nibbling, touching. 

 

They part and he whispers, barely audible against her lips, “It isn't your fault.” 

 

Her face twists, once again overwhelmed by grief, but she holds back the tears and presses harder against him, burying her face in the crook of his neck, leaning on him for support both physically and emotionally. “If I had--”

 

“No, sweetheart,” she shudders at the endearment, “You couldn't have done a god damned thing.”

 

“You don't even know what happened to her.” She whimpers.

 

“Then tell me.” 

 

She does. Giving details that she can't be sure are true, but she has fleshed out to the point of reality in her own mind. They had gone to the containment camp after she had abandoned them, they had settled in, all was well. They missed her, but still resented her for leaving them. Then one of the infected had broken loose from a quarantined area and wrought havoc across the camp. Jess was killed in an encounter with one of the beasts. If only Rey had been there, she might’ve--

 

“Stop.” Kylo snaps. She can feel where his hands are balled into fists, white knuckled at her back. “Stop doing this to yourself.” 

 

“I'm not--”

 

“You didn't do anything wrong!” He snarls, pushing her away, keeping her at an arm’s length so he can hold her gaze, “You did what you had to do to survive, Rey. Consequences be damned.” He is squeezing her shoulders to the point of pain, she struggles to escape his grip but he doesn't let her, instead he pulls her back into him, crushing her to him with all of the strength he can muster in his weakened state, “And I’m glad you did. I'm glad that you left them, that you didn't go to that _fucking_ camp. If you'd gone with them you might be dead too. And then where would I be? What the fuck would I be if I hadn't met you?”

 

“I…” she doesn't know. She can't imagine a world where she hasn't met Kylo. Not after everything they have faced together. 

 

“Nothing! I would be nothing! I'd be fucking dead in a ditch somewhere! I would've put a bullet through my skull weeks ago if it weren't for you.” He pulls her back just far enough so that he can press their foreheads together. There is something wild, undeniably feral in his dark eyes. 

 

She kisses him. This kiss is intense, deep and long. She shoves him backward, his shoulders connecting hard with the metal side of their shack as she thrusts herself into his lap. She raises herself over him on her knees, holding his face steady with both of her hands as they clash. Each swipe of her tongue is met with a heady moan, each nip with a low growl that sends a shiver of excitement up her spine. She pulls his hair, forcing his head back further so she can dominate him entirely in the kiss. He groans into her mouth, one hand sliding down along her back to grip her bottom, the other running down her front to play with the fly of her pants. 

 

When they break for air Kylo intentionally shifts so she can feel his erection pressed flush to her bottom through their clothing. She bites her lip, tempted. But she had made a deal with him earlier, that he would stay with Kalonia until she released him, and only then would she let him fuck her. 

 

“Nope.” She slides off of his lap, rolling gracefully away to lay on the other sleeping bag, head propped on one hand watching his nostrils flair with frustration. “We had a deal.” 

 

She rubs her thighs together in an attempt to sate the ache that has begun at their apex. It does little to soothe her, but she won't give in. She takes a certain amount of, admittedly misplaced, pleasure in seeing Kylo’s vexation over denial of sex. It's almost cute, the way he rolls onto his back and huffs. 

 

“I'm going to go back anyways,” he rumbles, rolling to be beside her and nuzzling into her, pressing his lips softly to her hairline. “Please, Rey?” 

 

She sighs, letting herself sink into his form, enjoying the way he dwarfs her, the way their legs tangle together. She ignores his length, pressing hard against her thigh through the jeans he now wears, despite the fact that she wants him desperately. “No, you’re on the mend. Doctor’s orders.”

 

He huffs and flops onto his back, “Fine.”

 

She watches him for a moment. The way his lashes brush his pallid cheeks when he blinks, the way his eyes roam the dented stretch of their ceiling while he attempts to calm his arousal. He is beautiful, in his own disturbed way, inside and out. He loves her, he understands her pain. 

 

She lifts one of his large palms to her lips, kissing the heel of his hand lightly. “Thank you.” She whispers, pressing her cheek into his palm. “Thank you for coming to me.”

 

He doesn’t look at her when she responds, but she can see the heat mounting behind his eyes, even in profile, “Of course I came. I hate it when you’re hurting.” 

 

His voice, low and intense, makes her shiver, but not with the sexual energy she had been flooded with moments before. What she feels is delicate, and warm, is makes her chest tighten and takes the breath from her lungs. She tucks herself tight into his side, letting her lips brush the side of his neck. 

 

“I love you.” 

 

One arm wraps around her waist and the other rises up to where her hand rests on his chest, he places his own over it and squeezes. “And I love you. I love you, and I know that tonight, when Poe and Finn come to speak with you, you’ll talk to them about this. If I had the chance to talk with the men I’ve killed, I would. And now those who you'd thought dead by your actions are back, and alive. Seize the opportunity.” 

 

Rey gulps and nestles further into him, taking comfort in his body and scent. He's right. Of course he's right. “Okay,” she agrees, passively. She doesn't know if she can actually do it, at least not without the bravado enhancing aid of alcohol. She doesn't want to know what they think of her now, after everything that has happened. 

 

“Promise me.” He implores. 

 

“I promise.” 

 

They kiss and caress for a while longer before he decides that it's time to return to the house. He leaves her with a kiss, a damp pair of panties, and the promise that he'll show her around his childhood home once he is released by Harter. 

 

She is only alone for a short while when Poe and Finn arrive outside her door--if the crudely cut opening in the metal can even be called that. If she looks disheveled after the time she had spent with Kylo, they don't mention it. 

 

They drag her from the relative comfort of her new home to the ration line and begin to explain the basic social structure of the compound to her. Rations are allowed twice daily, be in line at 8 A.M. and 6 P.M. sharp to ensure that you’re fed. Water is also rationed, that's what the pail in her shanty had been for, each individual is allotted a full bucket every two days. One _can_ use the bucket for bathing, but since she is young and healthy they advise that she range out with one of the foraging parties and bathe in the nearby river. 

 

They continue to relay information. to her after they return to her shanty with their gruel; the written laws of the compound, and the unspoken but widely accepted ones. By the end of it her head is spinning from the wealth of new information being thrust upon her all at once. But she agrees when they ask her if she understands. She thinks she does. She hopes she does. 

 

Once the onslaught has ended, Poe beings another vein of conversation with a very ominous, “So…”

 

She braces herself for the worst. He had been icy towards her on their reunion, and she hadn't seen him after that. Now he seems friendly enough, if not a tad distant compared to his usual self. Or what had been his usual self before the world ended. Rey knows better than anyone how this new world can change someone, tear them down and then build them up anew, an entirely new person inhabiting the shell of the old. 

 

“What’re you doing with this Ben...er...Kylo guy?” She relaxes a little, if she treads carefully she can easily maneuver through this discussion and onto what really matters. 

 

“Kylo,” she assures him. She can tell by the way he shifts when Leia calls him Ben that he isn't comfortable with the name, not any longer. “He saved my life and I saved his. We’re together, romantically.” 

 

Poe, unlike Finn had previously, doesn't push it further with any invasive questions. He just states what he can surely see written plainly across her face, “You love him.” 

 

Rey nods, her hands fisting in the material of her sleeping bag, “More than anything.” 

 

Poe nods, acceptingly. Though she glimpses a brief look of disapproval pass over Finn’s face before Poe speaks again, regaining her full attention. 

 

“You’ve changed, Rey.” Another statement of fact, not up for debate, and another that she agrees with wholeheartedly. “I could see it in your eyes the day we found you in that cabin. And I can see it even more vividly now. You're not the Rey we knew a month ago.” 

 

His eyes are filled with questions. The end of his statement is loaded with them. But he bites his own tongue, likely having been warned by Finn that she's feeling particularly prickly today. So she beings to explain what she's willing to, seizing the opportunity to lead into what she needs to discuss. 

 

“I have changed a lot. I've been through a lot. I nearly died…” the fact that she has to stop and count on her fingers is macabrely comedic, “Five times, maybe more. I nearly died, and then I fell in love, and then I almost lost the man I'm in love with to some ginger maniac who chains women to walls. The Rey you knew before wouldn't understand any of those things.” 

 

And it's true. She’d never felt death's icy fingers wrapped so tight around her pale throat that she had accepted her demise as inevitable. She had never known the burning passion of newfound love, or the rough touch of a broken man. She had never known the agony of having her one light in the world torn away from her, never watched someone she loved fade hour by hour, minute by minute, wasting away in front of her while she was powerless to help. That Rey had never loved so deeply that she would deny murder and damnation to protect the object of her affection. 

 

That Rey was but a shadow of the woman she is now. She has been made stronger by these trials she has faced. Reformed in the fires of uncertainty and death, sharpened on the whetstone of agony and loss. “The Rey you knew before was a coward.” She continues, “I left you all for dead. But here you are. I'm sorry.” 

 

There is a pregnant pause. Finn looks bemused, Poe looks concerned. Do they really not know? Do they not see the heinousness of what she has done? “What do you mean?” The latter asks. 

 

“I...I abandoned you, I left you for dead.” She keeps her voice even, betraying none of her internal struggle. She wants them to judge her for her crimes without hesitance, she doesn't want her tears to earn pity from them. “I thought you were dead. That by letting you all go to that stupid camp I’d damned you. But here you are. Except Jess.” 

 

They both shrink at the sound of her name, shoulders slumping, eyes lowering to the dirt floor. 

 

“That's not your--”

 

“Yes it is,” Rey argues, “If I had been there, if I had stopped you all from going, she'd be here right now. Jess would still be alive.”

 

“Stop!” Poe shouts, sitting up as far as the low ceiling will allow, “You don't know if any of that is true! You can't possibly know! None of us can, and none of us could've. You did what you had to do, you saved your own hide as far as I'm concerned and we can't blame you-- _you_ can't blame you for that.” 

 

Rey laughs sardonically, her eyes flashing guilt and pain, “You’re right, I did what I had to do to save myself, and left the rest of you to be eaten alive. When I abandoned you--” Poe opens his mouth to protest the us of the word abandoned, but Rey stops him with a raised hand, “When I _abandoned_ you, I didn't care what would happen to you. In that moment I relapsed into nineteen years worth of self-preserving instinct. I knew that you all would die and I left anyways.” 

 

Finn finally speaks up, looking a bit bewildered, “But we’re alive. You didn't--”

 

“Tell that to Jess.” Rey snaps.

 

“Enough.” Poe interjects, “That’s enough.” He looks a decade older, the lines of his face made heavy by the shadows of the shanty. His eyes are weary, laden with what must be a lifetime's worth of trauma and loss compounded into the span of a single month. “Yes, Jess is dead. Yes, you left us. But we’re here now, we’re together and that's what matters. I don't understand this need to martyr yourself. You made difficult decisions during a very difficult time, we all did. My decision to go on to the containment camp is what got Jess killed, nearly got Finn killed too. Every one of us is guilty of something, no one is innocent. You may see the actions you took as unforgivable, but Finn and I are here, and we’re forgiving you, whether you want us to or not. We can't lose anyone else.”

 

Rey is dumbstruck. They really don't understand. They refuse to see the fault in what she has done. 

 

“I…”

 

“You don't have to accept our forgiveness if you don't want to, Rey. You can keep beating yourself up over it, telling yourself that it's all your fault if you want. But know that we’ve let it go, we’ve forgiven you. The onus is yours now, entirely.” Poe crosses his arms over his chest, watching her reaction cautiously as he speaks, like he's afraid he might break her. 

 

So much time she had spent convincing herself that she had damned them to the worst kind of death, that they must have hated her when they met their end. And now this. Forgiveness. Salvation. And she doesn't know if she can accept it.

 

“I understand, I do...I just, I need some time to think, please.” Rey pleads with them. “I don't know who I am anymore. After everything that I've done, everything that I've been through. I don't know if the Rey who made those decisions is still here, if she’s even alive to forgive herself.” 

 

Poe and Finn share a long glance and then the older of the two speaks again. He sounds like the professor he had once been, stern, “That's not how people work, Rey. Just because you’ve experienced change doesn't mean that any part of you has died. Everything you were is still there, it's just been built upon by your new experiences. You'll always be Rey. That will never change.”

 

Rey can't speak, there is a lump in her throat as large as a stone, choking her, bringing tears to her eyes. These people, her dearest friends, they believe in her, they love her. They love her so dearly that they can't see how irreversibly she has changed, how she has long since passed the point of no return. Maybe that Rey isn't dead, but even if she still does live on, deep down, she is cast--pitiable and pathetic--in the shadow of what Rey has become. That Rey will never come back; less the individual she had been--they’re right, she's still Rey--and more the way that Rey had viewed the world with a certain level of hesitant optimism. Even after everything she had been through, Rey had been a hopeful girl before the world had ended. Now she is a cynic, and near paranoid. Constantly watching for the next enemy that will beset her, the next twisted shit who will try to rape her and murder Kylo. Her brain has shifted from bright optimism to sordid pessimism. She isn't the same. She hasn't been since the moment she left them behind. 

 

“I think I need time.” Rey explains softly. She doesn't know if she can accept their forgiveness yet. She's too lost. She wants to speak with Kylo. “I'm just…”

 

Poe nods sympathetically. “Take your time, kid.” He pulls her into a tight hug, “I know you’ve been through a lot. But we love you, and we’re here for you, okay?” 

 

Rey thinks she might cry when he lets her go and Finn immediately replicates the action, only he somehow manages to squeeze her tighter than Poe had. “You're okay, Rey. Everything is going to be okay.” He whispers into her ear with conviction. His voice is thick with emotion, and she suspects that he too is close to weeping. 

 

They leave after that. Letting Rey alone with her thoughts. They're thunderous, like dominant dark waves slamming down on a subservient shore, washing away layer after layer of fine sand. She feels weak, pathetic in the face of the many truths she must face. And the fact of the matter is that she doesn't know what _is_ true anymore. Who is she? What is it that she's guilty of? 

 

She realizes after several moments of deep thought that she had missed dinner with Kylo. She doubts he’ll mind, he knows what she had planned for this night. Still, she feels guilty all the same. But she can't bring herself to get up, to go to him. She’s too weak, too confused, and too tired. 

 

Rey lets her heavy limbs and heavy head drop onto the sleeping bag and shuts her eyes. Her sleep is tumultuous and restless, incomprehensible dreams waking her many times through the night. But it's better than being awake. It's better than waking and facing the music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longest chapter I've posted yet. Most of it was written on my phone while I was camping in the woods of mid-Ohio this week. I'm still there coincidentally, with minimal internet. (I used some of my precious data to post this). 
> 
> I've come out of the rut I was in for the most part. But I'm ditching the update schedule entirely. Chapters will probably be a bit longer on average from here on out, but they'll come at random as I write. 
> 
> Let me know what you think! It's the only way I can grow as a writer. And feedback really does fuel the inspiration machine. ;)
> 
> Also, feel free to share with friends/on tumblr (mine is oscarius, feel free to drop by). I don't do much self promotion because I'm a self conscious baby, and I'm also cut off from the internet almost entirely at the moment.


	19. Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: rape mention

Rey spends the next morning alone, sulking, mulling over the previous day's events. It's a dangerous thing, being left alone with her thoughts. Torturous as it is to be so isolated, she embraces it. She doesn’t want to go to Finn or Poe, the people she perceives herself to have hurt. She doesn’t want to go to Kylo, not when she looks so defeated, _is_ so defeated. She has been forgiven, been told that she hadn’t done anything wrong in the first place, but she isn’t ready to forgive herself. 

 

And this development, the forgiveness of her friends, the revelation that perhaps she hadn’t done anything wrong at all, that her infractions might be entirely self imposed; it leaves her reeling. If she is innocent, has caused no harm, what does that mean for her relationship with Kylo? He has not been absolved, cannot be. He is undeniably guilty, by his own admission. And what’s worse? She can’t bring herself to care. 

 

He is hers, no one will know the truth, no one will take him from her, even if they aren’t the same. Kylo, as physically strong as he may be, is not of sound mind, and likely never will be. He is rash, and impulsive, and unempathetic towards anyone other than her. He is brutal, and unforgiving in his mannerisms, and he always seems a hair’s breadth away from snapping. Rey suspects she may be the only reason he hadn’t attempted to attack his mother that day in the makeshift hospital room. She grounds him. He needs her to anchor him, to keep him from getting himself killed. 

 

She is stirred from her brooding thoughts by Finn poking his head through the crude cut door. 

 

“Rey?” He’s feigning ignorance to her current state of distress, and he is failing miserably. “A group of us are going out to draw water from the river, you want to come?”

 

“No.” She rolls over, facing away from him. She hates the way he smiles like everything is fine, like they can have some semblance of normalcy here. 

 

She hears Poe grumble from behind Finn, “Tell her she better get up or I’ll come in there after her. She needs to get out. And besides, she reeks to high heaven.” 

 

This time when Finn speaks she thinks she hears genuine humor in his voice. He finds her filthiness funny, or at least the way Poe had addressed it. “You heard the man. Get up sunshine, you need a shower.”

 

She huffs and crosses her arms. Still refusing to face them. Content to lie in her own filth and brood for the entirety of the day, leave to eat a sullen dinner with Kylo, and then return to resume her brooding. “No. Go away.”

 

She hears some stirring outside, a scuffle and some muffled bickering, followed by a muted, “Fuck that.” From Poe. 

 

And then the older man is inside the door, reaching for and grabbing onto her ankles before she has a chance to process just exactly what he is doing. He drags her, kicking and spitting like a hellcat, from the shanty, until more than half of her body has been forced out into the sunlight. Snarling like a mad dog she throws out her arms, bent at the elbows, and lets them catch on to the sides of the doors, tensing her back and shoulders to keep her upper body firmly in place within the safety of her home.

 

“What the hell Poe!” She snaps, trying to kick at him, and managing to wriggle one leg free. “Let me go!”

 

“Nope!” He has both of his arms secured around her left calf now, despite her right boot being pressed firmly to his face. “Finn get her other leg!”

 

The other man hesitates for a moment too long and Rey manages to kick Poe’s hand hard enough to force him to move, loosening his grip just enough for her to flip onto her stomach and kick out at him as she attempts to army crawl back into her shelter. But Poe is in hot pursuit, throwing himself on top of her and caging her between the ground and his body. He’s not nearly as large as Kylo is, but he seems to be just as strong.

 

She’s trapped. Pinned between the dusty earth and the body of her former professor, so she gives up, going limp beneath him. He shifts up and he whispers warningly into her ear, making her shiver. “I’m going to get up now, alright? And once I’m up, you’re going to come with Finn and Rose and I and the rest of our recon team. You need some fresh air, some sunlight. We’re not going to let you do this to yourself.”

 

Rey gulps and nods. And when Poe rises off of her she pushes herself up with tentative hands, suddenly aware of the new aches blooming across her body from where she had struggled against the dirt. They’ll likely bruise. 

 

“I’m sorry,” She offers to Poe as they make there way towards two large pickup trucks, both white, “I shouldn’t have kicked you.” 

 

Poe, already over their tiff, just chuckles, “No worries, kid. It’s pretty par for the course these days, and I’ve experienced much worse.”

 

The inkling of joy and familiarity that had been welling up inside of Rey at the momentary camaraderie falls to ashes in her chest. He’s experienced much worse, courtesy of her. 

 

Poe catches on too quickly for his own good and barks at her, “Stop that. It’s not your fault and you know it. The nature of living in a world like this one is pain, everything is pain. Every choice we make, every action and reaction, all pain. So cut the shit.” 

 

Pain. That word does well to explain what she has gone through. She tucks it away into the back of her mind to be pondered over later. For now she must wear a mask of joy, as the other scouts come to join them at the truck. She must masquerade as an ordinary person, as someone who isn’t currently being torn to shreds by ravenous guilt. She plasters on a smile and greets them. 

 

The day changes her. They go to a river, running low from lack of rain, but still clean and clear. They bring three dozen fifty gallon drums and fill them in the depths of it, a long and arduous task that leaves Rey’s muscles burning and her mind pleasantly buzzing with distraction. After the work has been done, and the trucks are loaded down with their liquid bounty, they split up into two groups; men and women, and go to different parts of the river, obscured from each other’s view by a bend and a copse of trees. 

 

There Rey bathes, washing away all of the grit and grief that Hux’s imprisonment had left marred into her skin. She peels the bandage off of her cheek and lets it drift away with the current, and feels the puckered skin beneath. A scar. Small, but a reminder still of what she had experienced. She decides in that moment that she will carry it with her pridefully for the rest of her life. Rey the survivor. She had overcome the terror of that place, and if that were possible, she can overcome any hardship laid before her.

 

She feels… _better_.

 

It is while she is bathing, letting water drip over the scabbed mess of her abdomen that she remembers the salve Kalonia had given her. And she pales. 

 

Once they arrive back at the compound she makes a beeline for her shanty, thanking Poe and Finn briefly for the day, and ignoring their cries of protests as she leaves them to unload the drums without her. 

 

She can’t spare the time. With each passing moment she swears that she can feel the dirty river water seeping further into her wounds, tainting her skin, infecting her with a hundred million microorganisms that will inevitably blossom into infection. She will not die. Not like this. Not at the mercy of something so easily avoidable. 

 

She is a survivor. 

 

She slides into the hut on her knees, slamming roughly into the back panel and then scampering for her bag. She shoves asides a pile of notebooks and condom packets, desperate to reach the precious salve but not finding it. 

 

It isn’t there.

 

_It isn’t in the fucking bag._

 

“Shit!” She curses and turns to the mess she had made. A pile of foil packets and torn notebooks stacked high behind her. She scatters them with her hands, tearing through them until she finds a small cannister buried beneath them, at the very bottom of the pile.

 

The relief she feels is immediate. It’s okay. Everything is fine. She isn’t dead yet. She isn’t going to die. 

 

She tugs her shirt up and over her breasts, pressing herself into a corner of the shanty and out of the view of any potential passers-by, and spreads the antibiotic ointment over her wounds. God, does it burn. She winces and bites the inside of her cheek, whimpering as she lays it on thick. But burning it good. Burning means it’s routing out infection. She’s okay.

 

Rey rests there, leaning against the cool metal and rough plywood of the hut, and lets the slave absorb into her war torn skin. She keeps her eyes closed, breathing slowly and evenly, contemplating what she can only think of as _everything_. 

 

Just this morning she had thought she wanted to die, she had felt so defeated that she imagined nothing could bring her back from the brink. But then she had bathed--both a physical and metaphysical experience for her, apparently--and she had felt that pucker of a scar on her cheek, and she had realized that she had come too far to quit, to give up now and die when she was so close to safety. When she was so close to having a home.

 

Maybe she already does have a new home. Kylo. He’s home now, she thinks. Whether they are the same or not is irrelevant, she loves him for all that he is, good and bad. They’re meant to be together. That’s the only explanation for all of this, for how they have survived despite the terror and pain they have been subjected to. 

 

_Pain_

 

Poe had said that everything is pain. He’s right. Nothing that has taken place since the world had ended has brought her anything but pain. Not love, not sex, not reunification. Everything is pain. At least in the beginning. Now with Kylo she has found happiness, with Finn and Poe forgiveness. Pain is the reality of this new world, the immediate, the front. But pain gives way to other things, muted but still beautiful, still worth living for. Things like love, and pleasure, and joy, and hope. Pain is a constant now, pain is everything, it accompanies everything, every decision and every consequence. But if one can survive the pain, grit their teeth and muscle through it, they will find the world is still worth living in, still worth fighting for. 

 

“Rey!” She is ripped near violently from her mind by a frantic call for her. Her eyes fly open and she jolts forward. Only remembering that her stomach and breasts are bare when she feels her nipples tighten at the chill that runs down her spine.

 

She tugs the shirt back over her exposed body and crosses her arms defensively over her chest as Finn shoves his head into her home. “Rey, you gotta come with me right now.” He’s panicked, wide eyed and breathing hard. 

 

“Why?” Rey snaps, head tilted back, eyes narrowed suspiciously. She had been deep in thought and wants desperately to return to it. 

 

“Please, Rey. It’s Kylo and Poe,” Finn begs, “Just come!”

 

Oh no. Kylo couldn’t possibly have seen...could he?

 

Rey jumps to her feet, only to slam headfirst into the low ceiling of the shanty. She ignores the way her ears ring and her tongue throbs from where she bit it, and follows Finn, the both of the sprinting from the shanty town, across the law and towards the barn. 

 

Even from several hundred yards away Rey can make out Kylo and Poe, circling one another like dogs, ready to spring at any moment. There is a half circle of people standing around them. Some of them shouting, egging them on, while others are clearly attempting to diffuse the situation, but they are quickly shrugged off--or pushed away, in Kylo’s case--by the posturing men. 

 

The world seems to slow as Kylo raises his fist, thick arm drawn back, dark eyes burning with indignation, but his fist never lands. Rey barrels into his side at full speed before he can let the punch fly, throwing him off balance and sending the both of them tumbling to the ground. Rey recovers well before Kylo, who is clearly still reeling, trying to understand what the hell had just happened to him. Ray rises up unto her knees and then plants herself firmly on his abdomen, legs caging his midsection. She crosses her arms over her chest and glares down at him with blazing accusatory eyes. 

 

“What the fuck was that, Kylo?” She snaps. She thinks she can hear Finn dispersing the crowd around them, but she is far to focused on Kylo to care enough to look. 

 

He’s still seething, consumed by his anger. She can tell by the way his eyes burn, the way his lips curl at the accusation of wrongdoing on his part, “What do you mean ‘What the fuck was that?’?! I saw the way he grabbed you this morning! The way he--”

 

“Stop!” Rey throws her hands down onto his chest, pushing him back into the dirt where his shoulders had begun to rise up. “We shouldn’t talk about this here. If I let you up do you promise to fucking behave yourself?” 

 

He’s such a child, sometimes. He huffs, but nods in agreement, albeit indignantly. Rey rolls off of him and onto her feet, glancing around the general vicinity to make sure that Poe has cleared out. He’s nowhere in sight. Good. Rey makes a point not to take Kylo’s hand when he reaches up for help getting to his feet, keeping her arms crossed tightly over her chest. 

 

The walk back to the shanty is tense and silent, Rey keeping one step ahead of Kylo the entire way, making her dissatisfaction clear. 

 

When they arrive his lips part as he takes in the mess she had left sprawled across the floor, notebooks and foil packets scattered over the dusty ground. “What the hell happened?”

 

“I should be asking you the same.” She says tersely as she sits with an irritated huff. “Why did you try to pick a fight with Poe?” 

 

Kylo slumps down across from her, looking down to the ground like a scolded child, “I can see this spot from the window in the house, you know. I saw him fucking grab you this morning, _get on top of you_. No one gets to touch you like that.” 

 

“I decide who gets to touch me and how, Kylo. Not you.” Rey bites. She means it. He doesn’t own her, the possessive bastard.

 

“He attacked you!” Kylo shouts, “He was fucking on top of you! You were fighting him!” he’s lunged forward and their foreheads are nearly touching now. Rey can taste his breath, feel the heat radiating off of his pale skin. 

 

“No he didn’t!” 

 

“Then what the fuck was that?” 

 

“I…” Rey trails off. She understands what he thinks he saw, and maybe in the moment she had felt similar. It _had_ technically been an invasion of her space, he had grabbed her without her permission. But it had been wholly necessary. She had been content to remain indoors and rot for all eternity, if it weren’t for Poe she’d likely still be in that same position. 

 

“I wasn’t doing well after my talk with Poe and Finn yesterday…” She isn’t sure how to continue, but quickly recovers as Kylo’s face begins to redden, “No! No, they didn’t do anything wrong. They _forgave_ me, Kylo. They told me that it wasn’t my fault.” She shrinks away from him, sliding backwards until her shoulders meet with a plywood wall. 

 

Kylo’s expression softens, unadulterated rage reducing into befuddlement, “Then why…?”

 

“I didn’t think I could accept their forgiveness. I’m still not sure if I can. But last night and this morning it was terrible. I could hardly move.” She explains, her voice raising in pitch as she goes on, forcing back white hot tears, “I--they came to me this morning because they care, because they wanted to make sure I was okay, and they wanted me to go out to gather water with them, to distract me. I said no, but Poe wasn’t going to let me suffer like that anymore. So he made me come.” She’s crying now, tears streaking freely over her face.

 

Her tears have little effect on him. His face scrunches with anger again. “That’s no excuse for him to touch you like that, Rey! No one gets to--”

 

“‘Touch me like that’?! Huh?” Her tears are those of anger now, “Is that all you have to say you fucking maniac? Are you that possessive and jealous that you can’t see when someone is trying to help me? Never heard of tough love?!”

 

Love. Wrong choice of words. 

 

He pounces on her with near violence, her shoulders slamming hard back into the plywood, and crushes his lips against hers, prying her mouth open with his tongue. His hands grip her biceps tight enough to bruise, but she doesn’t care. She whimpers and kisses him back. If he needs to feel her to know that he’s the only one she harbors any romantic inclinations towards, then so be it.

 

He shifts them so that she is laying on her back across one of the sleeping bags, and he is pressed firmly over her. His lips move from her mouth down to her throat where he growls against her skin while he nips and licks, his fingers fumbling at the hem of her tank top. “Mine, mine, mine.” 

 

 _His_. Ownership. Possession. It's so fucking unhealthy and yet Rey loves it. Loves the feel of his teeth on her neck, his hands gripping her hips so hard she knows that she’ll be bruised the next day. It's frightening, but simultaneously so exhilarating that she's already damp between her thighs. 

 

Once her top is gone he drops to her breasts. Sucking a pretty mark into the side of the left one, while he kneads the other in his large hand. She whimpers and tangles her fingers into his dark hair, whispering for him to get on with it. She wants him _so_ badly. 

 

Kylo groans in agreement and climbs back up her body. He catches her lips in another scathing kiss before he tears himself away from her, rising up onto his knees and tugging his shirt over his head. The bruises, once a dark smattering of purple and blue and black across his torso, are fading into sickly yellow and green. Rey reaches up to touch him, to run gentle fingers over his hurts and attempt to offer him some comfort, but he swats her hands away. 

 

“ _No_.” He snarls, “Don’t look at them, don't even think about them. I don’t want to think about that place right now, not when I’m going to be inside you.” His voice is low and husky, it makes her shiver in anticipation despite the anguish she feels at his statement. Just by acknowledging his wounds desolate memories of his imprisonment are dredged. 

 

She looks away from them, down to where he is unzipping the fly of his too-small jeans. The outline of his cock is clear and undeniable in the denim. 

 

“Condom.” She reminds mildly as he struggles to force the article down his thighs. 

 

“God--fuck!” He hisses as he fumbles backwards in an entirely unsexy way, struggling clumsily to force the legs of them over his ankles. “Fucking hell!”

 

Rey snickers, bringing one hand up to convert her mouth in an attempt to hide her amusement. It fails spectacularly. 

 

“You think you can do better?!” He rants, throwing his hands up in the air. 

 

The image of Kylo, three fourths naked, cock tenting his boxers and jeans caught on his ankles is almost too much to comprehend. This man has killed people, can wield a sniper rifle like a third limb, but he can't get a pair of pants off of his own legs. 

 

“Here,” Rey manages through her laughter, “Let--let me get them for you.” 

 

It's really not that difficult, forcing the tight fabric over his feet. It just takes some slight cajoling on her part. Once he is freed he tackles her back onto the sleeping bag, pushing her roughly into the nylon and pressing his forehead to hers. His eyes catch her own and hold them, their depths full of lust and warning. 

 

“Don't test me.” He rumbles, and presses his erection over her clothed center. 

 

She whimpers and reaches for her own fly, easily shucking her capris off along with her panties, not bothering to look where they land. 

 

“That's it," he breaths over her lips, nipping her lower one before he rises up again and rids himself of his plain black boxers. His cock springs free, bouncing heavily between his thighs, imposing and red at the tip. He doesn't need to be reminded about the condom twice. Before Rey can open her mouth he is reaching out and feeling blindly across the floor for one of the many she had scattered earlier in the day. His eyes never once deviate from her--her sultry eyes, her heaving chest, where she chews her lower lip in anticipation--as he acquires one of the packets, frees the condom, gives the tip a slight tug and then rolls is over himself; tip to root. 

 

“Never forget,” he rumbles low as he leans back over her, lining himself up with one hand while bracing himself with the other, “You are _mine_ , Rey.” 

 

And he pushes home. 

 

Rey whines high in the back of her throat, her ankles locking at the small of his back as he immediately sets a brutal pace. His thrusts are hard, his hips snapping jerkily against her’s on each push. Every inward movement stretches her, fills her to the precipice of pain, and everytime he pulls away she feels intensely empty. He has never been this rough with her before.

 

His hands are braced above her head, neck straining over her face. When he begins to chant softly, _Mine, mine, mine_. She gasps and wraps her arms tight around his shoulders, tugging him down to her so she can hide her face--scrunched in intense pleasure--in the crook of his neck. She kisses him there, sucking and nibbling his skin as his hips snap against her and she rocks back against him, marking him so that he might understand that if she is his, he is equally and immutably hers as well.

 

He needs this. She can feel it in the harsh slide of his cock into her body, in the way he sounds like he might be sobbing his mantra now, in the way one of his hands slides down to the small of her back and lifts her into him on each thrust, sending him further into her, leaving her keening on each instroke. 

 

She’s so close, teetering on the very edge of her orgasm, when she hears him plead for her. It’s barely audible over her own moans, and the slap of their skin, his heavy breathing, and the ringing in her ears. 

 

“Please.” he gasps, and she’s certain now that he is crying, “Please say it.” He’s still pounding into her hard, his pubic bone banging deliciously against her clit on each thrust. 

 

She knows what he needs to hear, “I’m yours,” she gasps, and he thrusts harder, “Only yours.”

 

“ _Mine_ ,” three more hard, pointed thrusts and he’s there, his back arching, head thrown in pleasure. And Rey is right behind him, she curves upward into his body, fingernails digging hard into his shoulders as she falls over that fine edge.

 

They lay there for a few moments afterwards. Each loathe to disturb the other in such an ethereal, post-coital haze. But eventually the weight of Kylo’s body over her own prompts Rey to give him a slight shove, and he rolls away, lying next to her on the sleeping bag. She curls into his side, resting her head on his shoulder and tracing unseen patterns into his sweat dampened skin. 

 

Kylo is a sick man, dark and twisted and possessive, a dangerous dichotomy that she can’t seem to stay away from. 

 

When he finally looks at her, _really_ looks at her for the first time that day, vision unclouded by lust or rage, his pupils blow wide at the sight of her new scar, silvery against the tanned skin of her cheek. 

 

Two large fingers rise up to trace it, feather light is their touch despite the rage that is so obviously roiling within him, making his hand shake. 

 

“ _I’ll kill every last one of them_ ,” It’s a promise, “I’ll make that slimy son of a bitch suffer for this.”

 

He looks near to tears again, his voice thick with emotion, but Rey is already there. She hates this, seeing this mangled tortured side of the man she loves so vulnerable and exposed to her. 

 

“Stop.” She demands, “Kylo, please. We’re never going back there, ever again.” 

 

He shifts into a sitting position, yanking the condom off of his flaccid penis and eyeing it repugnantly. There is nowhere for him to dispose of it in here, an unfortunate oversight of design. 

 

“We’ll see,” he finally responds as he begins to clothe himself, tying the end of it and then shoving the soiled latex into his pocket. He sounds uninterested, already distancing himself from the situation at hand. He’s fleeing, running away from what he has just done; whether this is out of guilt, or is motivated by some other factor, Rey can’t be sure. 

 

“Kylo…” Rey says weakly, so tired of this game. 

 

“The doctor will want me back, I left quite abruptly.” And then he is gone, out the open door of their shanty.

 

Open door. Shit. They’d likely just put on quite the show for anyone in the general vicinity. She only hopes that neither Poe nor Finn had thought to come check on her. 

 

That evening she cleans up the mess she had made of the condoms and notebooks, fitting them all neatly back into her bag, and setting the salve aside after applying it.

 

She still goes to eat dinner with Kylo, and Kalonia quickly flees the room at the slightest hint of the tension between them. It is sullen, silent, and brief. 

 

The next day is better. At least with Finn and Poe. She spends it with them, from dawn until dusk, helping with menial tasks around the camp. Repairing a shanty here, patching the wall there. Minor things that keep her hands and mind busy. 

 

Once supper time comes, she trudges reluctantly through the manor until she reaches Kylo’s room, but she is not met with the usual dead quiet as she approaches the door. Instead she hears voices. One low and rough; Kylo. The other is higher, but still husky; Leia. 

 

Rey knows she shouldn’t, but she presses her ear to the hard wood of the door. Straining to hear their conversation.

 

“...m sorry.” Leia. 

 

A beat of silence.

 

“I know.” Kylo. 

 

Another tense beat of quiet, followed by Leia’s stern voice, “You’re father went west with Luke, but we’ve spoken many times and I promise you he feels the same as I do. He loves you. He’ll want you to come with us so he can see you again.”

 

Come with us? What does that mean? 

 

“I don't think that’s going to be possible. After the raid on the prison Rey and I will be going our separate way.” He sounds stiff, Rey can hear his discomfort, even through the door. 

 

Leia scoffs, “Why don't you let Rey decide what Rey will do?” 

 

Rey nods in silent agreement. 

 

“Because she doesn't know what's best for her.” He snarls back, “No one here can be trusted, none of you.”

 

“Is this about what happened with Poe this morning?” Rey can practically hear Leia’s eyebrow cocking, “It is, isn't it. Honestly, Ben? I don't know the full details of the situation, but from my understanding it was entirely non-sexual, they were just trying to get her to go outside.” 

 

He doesn’t respond, and Rey can picture clearly the sullen expression on his face, eyes cast to the floor, refusing to make contact, to hold his mother’s gaze.

 

“You don’t own her, Ben.” 

 

“Leave.” 

 

Rey begins to back away from the door, making like she had just come down the hallway. But she still hears the jilted, “ _Ben_ \--” from Leia.

 

And then Kylo’s resounding, “ _Leave!_ ”

 

When Leia opens the door and steps over the threshold she looks harrowed, her forehead lined with worry, eyes cast down in deep thought. She hardly notices Rey as the two nearly slam into each other.

 

“Oh!” She is jolted from her thoughts, “Oh, Rey. I’m sorry dear.” 

 

“That’s okay.” Rey smiles kindly, pretending that she hadn’t heard any of the preceding conversation with Kylo. 

 

“Are you here to see Ben?” Leia asks, “What am I saying, of course you are. Tread carefully tonight, dear. He’s quite prickly.” And with that Leia skirts away. 

 

Rey wonders momentarily why the woman hadn’t pulled her to the side and given her further warning, mentioned her worry over how possessive Kylo is. But then Rey realizes, Leia knows that Rey knows. Leia knows that this is the partial nature of their relationship, and the woman knows that she would only be met with lukewarm answers were she to attempt to speak to Rey about it. 

 

Rey walks stiffly into the makeshift hospital room, prepared for anything. Kylo is sitting with his legs crossed on the bed, a covered tray sitting next to him where he plays absentmindedly with his fingers.

 

Rey lifts the cover to find the usual nondescript gruel, as well as water and some saltine crackers. She scrunches her nose, but climbs up onto the bed beside Kylo anyways, taking one bowl and passing it to him along with some crackers. He nods his thanks and takes it, but he doesn’t begin to eat immediately like Rey does, instead he sits and watches her with dark, mournful eyes. He feels guilty, she thinks. 

 

After a few minutes of frustrating quiet Rey sets her half empty bowl on the bed and turns fully towards him, pressing a gentle hand to his shoulder, “Eat, Kylo. Please. You need it.” 

 

He ignores her comment, instead posing a question to her, “How much of that conversation did you hear?” His voice is measured, revealing nothing of his internal monologue, but his fearful eyes tell a different tale. He doesn’t want her to know what was said, what had taken place between he and his mother. 

 

“Just the end bit about your father and the raid.” Rey explains, quickly dropping the topic of Mr. Solo, or whatever the man’s name is, when Kylo shifts uncomfortably, “So what’s this about a raid?”

 

She hopes to god it isn’t what she thinks it is. But what else could it be?

 

“My mother is planning a final assault on the prison. She wants them eliminated entirely before she and her followers pack it in and head west after my uncle.” Kylo explains, cynically, “I don’t understand why, exactly. The prison is east of here, they don’t need to concern themselves with it if they’re heading to California.”

 

“She doesn’t want to leave those women there,” Rey answers. She shares Leia’s sentiment, this compound and its people could quite possibly be the last hope those women have for liberation. “I wouldn’t want to either.”

 

“Now isn’t the time for altruism.” He says brusquely. 

 

“It’s a chance for you to get revenge,” Rey counters, playing into his unhealthy vindictiveness in a desperate attempt to get him on board. Just earlier today she had told him that they would never go back, but if it keeps him here longer, and by extension her; if it helps to free those women she had seen living in squalor, chained to cold sheetrock walls, she’ll take it. 

 

Kylo grunts and sets his untouched food aside, then wraps his arm around her waist, pulling her roughly into him. “You’re right.” He rasps into her ear, “I’ll make them pay. The things they did to you, _to us_ , are unforgivable and cannot go unpunished.” 

 

Rey fists her hand in the fabric of his shirt, she shouldn’t keep feeding into these dark fantasies of his. It’s wrong, it’s unhealthy, but she doesn’t know if she could stop it if she tried. 

 

“Do you know what they did to me in there, Rey?” He seethes, “The threw me into that cell and beat me everyday, dragged me into that fucking interrogation room and then paraded you in front of me like livestock; blinded, wounded, _pregnant_.”

 

“I wasn’t--” 

 

“It doesn’t matter whether you were or not, Rey.” He interjects, trying to keep his voice even. She can hear the strain where her ear is pressed firmly to his chest, “In the time that we were there that was my reality. You were pregnant and being held captive, I was helpless to protect you. And they--” his voice breaks, so he sucks in a deep, calming breath and continues shakily, “And they told me that you would be raped, that you were crying for me every night, that they were going to beat my baby out of you. They drugged me so my brain wasn’t working right and they whispered those things into my ear until they became more real than you are now.”

 

His fingers are claws on her hips, pressing hard into her skin. She lifts her head just enough to see that he is staring straight ahead at a blank wall, eyes wide and feral, nostrils flared and lips curled. Kylo is wholly animal in this moment, vengeance overtaking his every faculty until he is a smoldering beacon of vindication and rage. 

 

“They won’t get away with it, Rey. With having hurt you, tortured me. They. Will. Pay.” 

 

Rey can’t speak. If she tries she knows that she will weep for this man and what he had experienced, the mental and physical torture he had undergone. She instead chooses to console him bodily, nuzzling into his throat and kissing him softly there, over the very mark she had worked into his skin the day before. 

 

“I’m sorry about that,” he whispers, “How I treated you yesterday. That was wrong of me, I shouldn’t let myself get carried away like that I just…” 

 

Rey, finally having regained control of her own emotions, pulls back just enough to look at him. She reaches up and tilts his head down so that she can hold his gaze, “What we have isn’t healthy, Kylo. It isn’t normal.”

 

He opens his mouth to protest but she stops him, placing a delicate finger over his lips as she continues, “But, I don’t want it to end, ever. Because despite how fucked it is that you feel some sort of _ownership_ over me, despite the horrific circumstances that brought us together, I am in love with you. And you are in love with me. And each of us would die for the other without question. I don’t think that we could survive apart from one another now, I don’t think it’s possible.”

 

She pulls back from his embrace completely, but keeps her hands on his broad shoulders so he doesn’t try to look away. “Everything is pain. That’s the world we live in now. Every action and reaction, every word and touch, is levied with pain. But beyond that there are still other things, like joy, and hope, and love. So even though what we have here will undeniably continue to cause us unimaginable pain, we’re going to keep it alive because we know already that it can be good too. It makes us hopeful for a better future, fills us with love, and gives us the will to fight and live even when it would be easier, simpler, to lay down and die. Even if what we have is dark, and fucked to hell, it’s worth keeping alive. It’s worth fighting for.” 

 

Kylo stares at her for a long moment, dumbstruck, eyes filled with awe. And then he moves, tackling her onto the bed and sending their rations spilling onto the floor. But neither of them care, they are too lost in the kiss of each other's lips, the brush of their tongues and clash of their teeth. 

 

They make love as quietly as they possibly can, quick and passionate laid across the hospital bed. Kylo has the wherewithal to pull out and finish on her belly when they crest. An action for which Rey is abundantly thankful. 

 

They redress and lay in amicable silence for a while afterwards, wrapped around one another, cradling each other. And once the stars have made themselves known in the inky night sky, and the gibbous moon has made its nightly entrance, they kiss and Rey departs with a soft spoken, “I love you.”

 

The next day Kylo will be released, and they will only have a short interlude together until the inevitable raid on Hux’s prison. Rey looks forward to it, but she also loathes it. It represents a new beginning, change for the better as they will certainly continue the long trek west once the smarmy bastard is dead. But it also represents one more obstacle that stands in their way, one more thing that could kill either she or Kylo, tear them apart from one another permanently, end this wonderfully unique thing that they have found and forged together.

 

But she won’t let that happen. So long as Rey lives, Kylo will live too. She’ll make sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title; Tough love, by Poe Dameron
> 
> I wrote a one-shot the other day, it's a take on Han and Kylo's relationship inspired by the Dylan Thomas poem "Do not go gentle into that good night". It's not shipping related, so it's not getting very much traffic, but I'd love to hear what you think. I poured a bit of my soul into that fic. You can find it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11678976).
> 
> Thanks for reading this update everyone, I hope it was up to par. Next chapter shit gets intense again. 
> 
> Note: Use a condom kids, pull out method is pretty unreliable. Sperm can be in pre-ejaculate. 
> 
> Tumblr: [oscarius](https://oscarius.tumblr.com)


	20. Flame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning; rape mention (again in relation to their time at the prison)

Two weeks. Their ‘short’ interlude turns into a two week grace period wrought with anxiety. Leia’s planning and preparation is meticulous, every aspect of the raid and rescue mission planned to near perfection. Biggs returns twelve days before the event, bringing a crudely drawn map of the prison with him. From the little Rey can remember of the fraction of the prison she had seen, it seems accurate. 

 

She is privy to the meetings of the ‘elite’ of Leia’s compound, thanks to her being the girlfriend of the boss’s son. And said son has been tasked with assisting in preparation due to his time served in the military. At first Kylo had been hesitant, wanting little to do with his mother or her operation, but Rey had convinced him; cajoling at first, and then resorting to more _physical_ pleas when he had refused. 

 

Now, two days before the raid, he is hard at work. Inspecting weaponry with expert eyes, teaching people how to properly hold, aim, and shoot a gun. It’s good for him, Rey thinks. To interact with others besides her; as much as he may hate it. He’s trying to be less possessive, she can tell. He still tenses when another man touches her, stills fucks her hard at night when they’re alone, but he no longer growls ‘mine’ in her ear while he does it. It’s difficult for him, but he’s trying, and that’s what matters. 

 

That day at their meeting in Leia’s office, everyone gathered closely around the heavy oaken desk where Biggs’s map is spread, Leia explains that the next day she will finalize unit assignments. One large contingent will begin a frontal assault on the prison at sundown, hopefully distracting the bulk of Hux’s forces, and then a splinter group will move through the forest to the back of the prison, cut through the fences, and sneak in. That group will be responsible for the completion of the two main mission objectives; kill Hux and free the women he keeps trapped within his compound. Simple enough, but daunting nonetheless. 

 

After they have adjourned, Kylo leaves briskly, always eager to be away from large crowds, but Rey stays behind. She waits until only a few people linger before she approaches Leia where the older woman leans pensively over her map, brow furrowed in concentration.

 

“Um…” Rey begins, unsure of exactly how she wants to say what needs to be said, “Leia? Can I speak with you for a moment?” 

 

She raises her silvery head and gives Rey a gentle, tired smile, “Of course,” She waves to the few others still loitering about, “Alright everyone, clear out. My daughter-in-law and I need to talk.” 

 

_Daughter-in-law._

 

Leia has taken to calling her that as of late. One of the few things about his mother that Kylo seems to appreciate, he stands a little taller when she says it in his presence. Rey on the other hand tends to blush and cower. It’s intimidating, the thought of marriage, or being married, and she’s only twenty. Marriage isn’t even on the table for her. Not until they’ve made it out of this mess and she can properly evaluate the nature of her relationship with Kylo; which is admittedly uncertain, as much as he likes to think it’s not. If he chooses to separate from Leia’s people when they depart for California Rey isn’t certain that she would, or even could, follow. 

 

And, besides. If she were to agree to marry Kylo, who’s left to officiate? She doesn’t see any ministers, priests, rabbis, or imams hanging around. Let alone a courthouse that could issue a marriage license. 

 

Once the room is clear, Rey begins quickly, pleadingly, “Please don’t put Kylo on the infiltration team. I don’t want him going back into that prison again, I don’t think he could handle it, as much as he says otherwise.” 

 

Truthfully it's far more than just that which concerns Rey. Kylo is out for revenge, hellbent on it, and she doesn’t think it’s healthy. She suspects that killing Hux will do Kylo little good, it might only derange him further, take him past the point of no return. She can’t lose him, especially not to himself. It would kill her.

 

Leia must see the panic in Rey’s eyes, hear it in her voice, because she lays her hands on the girl's shoulders and moves her towards one of the leather chairs positioned in front of the desk. 

 

“Sit, darling,” She offers, and Rey obeys, perching on the edge of the seat while Leia relaxes into the chair across from her own, “I was going to put both you and Kylo on the infiltration team, because both of you have seen the inside before, and escaped with your hides mostly in tact. It gives us a slight tactical advantage, and I’ll take whatever I can get. Why can you go back, but Kylo cannot? You both experienced untold horrors there.” 

 

Rey shakes her head, “No, you don’t understand. What they did to me was cruel, and painful, but it was mostly impersonal. They only ever used Kylo against me once, maybe twice. Everything else was almost… _clinical_ , I guess. Like I was just another girl passing through their territory.” She is already detached from it, the drugging and days of discombobulation. It carries little weight over her anymore. “But Kylo, what they did to him can only constitute psychological torture…” Rey hisses. Her fingers curving hard into the studded arms of her chair. 

 

Leia gulps, her gaze intense, “He refused to tell me anything. We could see the signs of physical torture on his body… but you think it went further than that?” 

 

“ _I know it did_ ,” Rey’s voice is so laden with untapped emotion that Leia leans back in her seat. Rey doesn’t need any further prompting as it bursts from her in a great wave of vindication and sorrow, “They held him in a dark cell for days, brought me to him and hurt me in front of him,” she runs her fingers roughly over the scar on her cheek, “They convinced him that I was pregnant and told him that if he did not comply they would ‘beat his baby out of me’ and rape me. You know how… dependant he is on me, how attached he is. It nearly killed him. When I found him in that cell he thought he was going to die, he had given up. He--” her voice breaks, and tears prick at the corners of her eyes. 

 

Leia leans forward, placing a gentle hand on Rey’s shoulder, “Rey you can--”

 

“He told me to go on without him,” she manages, “To leave him. _But I didn’t_. I got him out of their alive, I murdered people--including a good man--to get him the fuck out of there.” 

 

Leia cringes at the mention of Wedge, “He was a good man, Rey. But if killing him meant that my son was allowed to live, that you were able to make it here to us, then you shouldn’t let it weigh on you. It was necessary.” 

 

Rey shoves that guilt aside, it’s irrelevant in this moment, “He’s hellbent on revenge, Leia. He wants to destroy Hux, to ruin him. He can’t go into that prison again. If he does he’s going to get himself killed, or emotionally damage himself beyond repair. He’s already lost so much.” Her hand shifts impulsively to her abdomen, to the baby that never was. Kylo had felt a loss that Rey hadn’t when she had told him the truth of it. To him it had been real, it had been emblazoned onto his mind, across the backs of his eyelids. 

 

“And what about you,” Leia asks, cautiously, “You say it wasn’t as personal for you, that it didn’t affect you like it did my son. But how do I know that you’re telling the truth? That you won’t compromise my mission in a petty attempt at revenge?” 

 

Rey relaxes, seeing that Leia agrees Kylo should remain with the bulk of her people. This is far less concerning, “I don’t want to exact revenge on anyone. All that matters to me is that Kylo and I got out alive, and that Rose and Poe found us in that cabin.” She has already had her revenge. Doc is dead. She had plunged his own scalpel into his jugular and watched the light fade from his eyes. 

 

Leia seems to believe her, and nods grimly. None of this is pleasant to discuss, for either of them. “Alright. Kylo will stay with our attack force at the front of the prison, we could use his tactical expertise up there anyway.” She explains, “But you’re going to stay with the splinter group. You’ve seen the inside. I need you there.”

 

Rey dips her head in understanding, “Kylo isn’t going to be happy about this.”

 

Leia smiles wryly, “You just leave that to me, honey.”

 

Rey had been correct. The next day, after Leia has handed out assignments, Kylo is none too pleased. The room clears quickly once Leia adjourns, Kylo’s displeasure palpable to all of its occupants. Once everyone is gone, and the door shut tight behind them, Rey slumps into one of the chairs and taps her fingers impatiently on the arms, eager to get the impending fight over with. 

 

“What the fuck!” Kylo shouts, throwing his hands high in the air. 

 

Leia is standing behind her desk, looking entirely bored of this whole thing, and it’s hardly even begun. “What is it that has you riled now, Ben?”

 

Kylo’s fists clench tight at his sides, red splotches painting up his neck, Rey swears that she can hear his teeth grind. He storms over so that he is standing toe to toe with his mother, the tiny woman dwarfed by him, but somehow she still seems the bigger person. “What do you fucking think? Why aren't I on the infiltration team? Why is Rey? Why did you separate us?” 

 

Rey wants to snap at him, to tell him to hold his tongue when speaking to his mother. But she remains mum. Leia obviously has a handle on the whole situation from the way her arms are crossed over her chest and her foot is tapping impatiently on the floor. 

 

“You were a soldier, Ben. We need you at the front with us. You know tactical combat well.” She sounds almost jaded, and Rey has to stifle a laugh through sheer power of will.

 

“I don’t want us separated!” 

 

“You don’t have a choice, Ben.” Leia is stern, motherly. “Either you assist in the frontal assault on the prison, or you stay here with Kalonia, and wait for us all to come back.” 

 

He throws his hands up again, grumbling and his breath, and storms away. Out of the room. Slamming the door hard behind himself. 

 

“That went well,” Rey sneers quietly from her seat, scowling. She doesn’t know what she had expected, and this was certainly the most likely outcome, but she had hoped that he might handle it with more grace. 

 

Leia laughs, “He’ll come around. And if he doesn’t, I meant what I said about leaving him behind.”

 

Rey smirks, amusedly, “Alright, well I’m going down to wait in our shanty. He’ll show up there when he’s ready to talk.” 

 

It’s on her way out that she notices something different. One of the doors in the hallway, that had previously always been closed, is slightly ajar. She stops and peers cautiously through the crack between the door and the frame. It’s a boy's room, a teenager if the various band posters and the pin up of a half naked woman are any indicator. And there, standing at the foot of a bed that is draped in a rocket ship covered comforter, is Kylo. 

 

Rey pushes through the door quietly, and shuts it gently behind her. The click of the lock engaging catches Kylo’s attention, and he turns quickly, aggressively on heel, facing her with a snarl that quickly fades into an irritated scowl. 

 

He huffs and turns back to his childhood bed, scrutinizing the childish pattern that adorns the linens. “I always wanted to get a new bedspread, but I never got around to it.” He’s right, the comforter doesn’t fit the rest of his decor. A boys fixture in an adolescent space. 

 

Rey steps up behind him and wraps her arms around his middle, pressing her face into his broad back, nuzzling against him, “I love you.” She whispers, muffled into his shirt.

 

She feels him physically relax, one large hand rising to rest over hers where they are clasped at his abdomen. “Then why did you tell my mother not to let me go with you tomorrow?” He no longer sounds irate, just dejected.

 

“Kylo…” she sighs, and presses a kiss between his shoulder blades, “How did you know?”

 

“Why else would she assign me to the front? ‘Tactical expertise’ my ass, this is Texas, there are at least three other veterans in this camp right now. I know. They’ve thanked me for my service and then talked my ear off about ‘Nam and Korea.” He removes her arms from around his waist and sits on the bed, facing her where she stands. “Why don’t you want me with you?”

 

“I always want you with me.” She replies both intensely and immediately, “But you’re vengeful, Kylo. You’re angry, and possessive, and I don't think that killing Hux--or going back into the prison for that matter--will help. I think that they'll make it worse.” She crosses her arms nervously, biting the inside of her lip.

 

He remains still on the bed for a moment, pensive, eyes cast down to his lap. Then he responds, his voice small, “Okay.”

 

Rey’s lips part, not quite believing what she’s hearing, “...just… okay?”

 

He nods, “Okay.” Then he reaches out for her, beckoning her to come sit with him. 

 

Rey takes his hand and lets him pull her into his lap. His lips meet hers in a slow, lazy kiss, she whimpers into his mouth and fists her fingers in the fabric of his shirt. He finally breaks it with a grunt and then presses a chaste kiss to her forehead, “You’re right,” he murmurs against her skin, rocking gently with her wrapped in his arms, “I shouldn’t go back inside.”

 

Rey nods in agreement and then presses back into him, her face burrowed into his neck, content to remain that way for as long as he’ll allow; his arms around her waist, face pressed tenderly into her hair. She doesn’t want this moment to end. 

 

“You know,” he rumbles goodnaturedly, “I never had sex in this bed…” 

 

Rey flushes at the suggestion. Sex in his childhood bedroom? That’s really what he’s thinking about right now? Of course it is, he’s Kylo. “Maybe after--” She cuts herself off, feeling him tense beneath her. They don’t know that there will be an after; Kylo seems even more aware of that then she. “Okay.” And she shifts, straddling his lap and laying her hands on his shoulders as she leans into a smoldering kiss. 

 

His hands find purchase on her waist and then slide upwards, over her stomach up to her breasts, and then he grabs her abruptly under the armpits and flips them. She squeals at the sudden change in position, but it quickly morphs into a moan as he presses his knee between her spread thighs. 

 

His grin can only be described as shit-eating when he tugs a condom from the pocket of his jeans. 

 

“You--” Rey sputters as he rubs her deliciously through her leggings, “You are _not_ carrying a condom around.” She gasps incredulously.

 

He laughs and waves it teasingly over her face, “With how needy we’ve been, yes I am. It’s not time to begin the repopulation effort just yet, sweetheart. We’ve still got a couple of things to take care of first.”

 

She swats at his shoulder and he snorts, leaning down to kiss her again. 

 

That night there is a bonfire, a massive wall of flame built high in the center of the yard. It’s glow seems to envelop the entirety of the camp, great tongues of fire reaching high above the walls that protect them. Rey can see it from where she peers through the curtain that covers their shanty’s door. Kylo had pinned it up the day he had been released by Kalonia, and he had stolen a wastebasket from the house as well. Both were put to good use. 

 

Kylo is at the fire now, with Poe and Finn and Rose; and everyone else for that matter. Rey had excused herself briefly, claiming she needed to pee, but really she had meant to come here, she had seen an opportunity and now she intends to take it. She gathers all of the notebooks from her bag, careful not to miss any of them, and clutches them close to her chest. Precious cargo. Her paranoia over them is intense as she ducks out of the hut and back into the open night air. If one falls, if one lands open for anyone to see, even for a fraction of a second…

 

She shudders to think of it. To have come this far only to lose everything. 

 

When she gets to the fire she kneels close to it, closer than anyone else dares to draw. It is intensely hot, her skin feels scalded from the proximity; but she grits her teeth and bears it, she has a job to do. She glances over her shoulder, and finds that no one is paying her any mind. They think nothing of a girl adding kindling to the inferno. 

 

Rey begins with the most incriminating of the writings; Kylo’s journal. She doesn’t just toss the thing haphazardly into the flames. No. What if it didn’t burn all the way through and some of his scrawl remained? Rather she tears it apart, page by page, crumpling them and watching them blacken and disintegrate. She doesn’t glance over their words again, just tears and throws, tears and throws. She already knows the story they tell, and she has no desire to recall it further than touching the damned thing already has made her. 

 

Once she has destroyed all of the pages, Rey tosses the covers in as well, watching as they wrinkle and then are ingested into the blaze. 

 

One by one, page by page, book by book, she repeats the process. Until the last of them has been cast into the flames and she is left staring at their ashes, a small unassuming mound in the inferno. It’s over. All evidence of his transgressions is gone. Kylo is free. 

 

She can’t seem to tear her eyes away from the tongues of fire as they lick against the ebon sky. Rebirth. This is his rebirth. 

 

Someone grabs her by her shoulder, tugging her back from the flames. “Rey?” It’s Kylo, “What are you doing so close? You’re going to burn yourself.” He admonishes. 

 

She rises slowly, shakily to her feet, “They’re gone, Kylo.” She whispers, her weak voice barely audible over the roar of the flames. “You’re free.”

 

“You mean…?”

 

“Yes.” 

 

He pulls her into a bone crushing embrace, shaking with silent sobs of simultaneous pain and relief. She rubs her hands carefully over his back and shoulders, up into his hair where she scratches soothingly at his scalp. “Let’s go back to the shanty,” She suggests. 

 

Tonight could be their last night. One or both of them could be killed tomorrow, and they are both acutely and dreadfully aware of that reality. 

 

They deserve to feel each other one last time. 

 

The next morning is a rush of preparation; the compound abuzz with anticipation and anxiety. Rey, accompanied by Rose, tugs her camouflage pants up to her waist, biting her lip as she takes in the patchy pattern of them. She had always scoffed at Kylo for wearing it, and yet here she is; though she has good reason. Most of her day will be spent hiking through the forest, this clothing could mean the difference between safe passage and a bullet to the back of the head. There is a matching jacket, along with a bucket hat and a pair of tawny hiking boots. 

 

“Are you nervous?” Rose asks as she zips up her jacket, “I am.” 

 

Rey nods, “Yea.”

 

She has so much to lose. 

 

They meet the rest of the infiltration team out at the trucks. They are leaving far ahead of the rest of the group, considering the hike they have to make. Kylo is also there, along with Leia. He looks perturbed to see her in army regalia. They circle up, and Rey stands a good distance away from him, knowing that if he were near she wouldn’t be focused on Leia’s final orders. They are a repeat of what she had been told the night before, and in more vague terms for weeks before that, but she feels that it’s important to listen, to ensure that she knows _exactly_ what will take place today. 

 

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” Leia begins, stepping into the center of their circle, “One final rundown. You will drive out into the forest, to the old picnic area, make your final preparations there and then begin to travel north through the woods. At noon you should reach the reconnaissance cabin, from there head due east, if you do not deviate you should emerge from the woods not a hundred yards from the back of the prison. By then we will have begun the frontal assault. Cut through the fences, and when you reach the back door use whatever means necessary to gain entrance. From there you will splinter into two groups of five. Rey’s team is tasked with finding and killing the criminal Armitage Hux, while Poe’s is tasked with finding and escorting the captive women to safety. 

 

“After those objectives have been completed I expect you to retreat back to the cabin--you can do so separately of one another as you complete your objectives--all of this must be achieved before dawn, at that point we will be retreating. We will come to find you at the cabin, don’t leave it. We have no idea how Hux might choose to retaliate.” She stands up taller, adjusting her posture and nodding to them all, “Understood?”

 

“Yes ma’am.” 

 

“Alright,” She shrinks a bit, less the commander and more the kindly old woman again, “Say your final goodbyes, I expect those trucks to be pulling away in five.” She looks sadly between Kylo and Rey. She too knows that this could be their final farewell. If they have underestimated Hux, if they have made one miscalculation, that’s it. They’re through. 

 

Rey practically throws herself at him, melting into his embrace. She closes her eyes tight and presses her face into his chest, taking the scent and feel of him to memory. They haven’t been apart like this since the last time they had been in that god forsaken prison. They had thought themselves safe from it, that it no longer stood any chance of separating them permanently. But here they are. 

 

“Don’t leave me, Rey.” He whispers brokenly into her ear. And she knows what he means. She understands that when he says ‘leave’ he is using the irreversible sense of the word. _Don’t die_. 

 

Rey feels tears prick in the corners of her eyes, but she forces them back. Now isn’t the time for tears. She wishes that she could promise him that she will come back, that _he_ will come back, that they’ll see each other come this time tomorrow and never have to face such an obstacle again. But she can’t, because to do so would be disingenuous, and she won’t lie to him. 

 

“I love you.” Is all that she can manage, and she hears his breath catch deep in his chest. 

 

“I love you, too.” He says after a long, strained moment. 

 

And then they break apart. 

 

Rey takes one last look at him, taking him to memory; his forlorn eyes, the pale panels of his face, his too-big nose and full lips. She loves him. Every broken, jagged piece of him. 

 

And then she climbs into the back of one of the trucks and it’s engine roars to life. 

 

This is it. What could be her last glance at the man she loves, the man who has saved her time and time again, who she has saved in return. Somehow in this month that she has known him he has become her entire world; and all of that could end today. 

 

She watches from her place in the bed of the truck as he disappears behind a sea of shanties and waving people, all eager to see them off. He is gone in the chaos. 

 

And she must be strong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't kill me; I had to split it into two parts. I promise next chapter will be worth it. Plus it means I got to update sooner than I had originally planned.
> 
> Also you might have noticed a few changes were made;
> 
> 1) The summary, tell me what you think. Should I return to the old format? Or is the new one better?
> 
> 2) I changed the rating from explicit to mature. This fic was originally slated to only be about ten chapters and feature a lot more smut. Obviously it isn't that anymore, it's much more serious now. I hope this doesn't put anyone off? I don't see why it would.
> 
> 3) I now have an estimated final chapter; 23. That is still subject to change, it could be one more or one less, but we are very near to the end here. I do have something else in the works though! The first chapter should go up soon so keep an eye out for it.
> 
> Also, remember that silly condom comment I promised back around chapter 7? It's here. 
> 
> Come say 'hi!' on tumblr, I post updates there and you can send me all the asks/messages you like :) 
> 
> Link; [oscarius](http://oscarius.tumblr.com)
> 
> I'm thinking about doing some mini prompts over there? Idk. How does one even begin to do that? :/


	21. Raid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some gore. If you've made it this far it's nothing you haven't read before.

The trek through the forest is agonizing. They must stay quiet, they cannot speak above a whisper for fear that a nearby zombie might hear them and call for its horde. Between the two settlements Leia is almost certain that they’ve thinned the herds significantly enough that the group shouldn’t face any real difficulties, but they must still be cautious. One wrong move, one broken branch or raised voice, and they could have the wrath of a previously unseen menace upon them. It’s taxing, and Rey’s nerves are fried after just an hour of hiking. Her ankle is mostly healed, but the stress of the situation seems to recall old pains and she walks with a slight limp. 

 

There is a sudden rustling from a dense thicket beyond a copse of pine trees. Everyone freezes, eye wide, weapons gripped tight in white knuckled hands. Rey prays that it’s nothing; just a rabbit, or a deer, even coyote would be preferable to the alternative. Her prayers go unheard. A low moan echoes through the forest, sending birds flying from the canopy; they’ve adapted quickly to the new apex predator. Smart things, much more intelligent than the group of humans who stand frozen and white faced on the substrate. Rey looks to Poe for instructions. He raises a single, shaking hand. Signaling for everyone to _stay still_. 

 

He must hope that it’s just a stray, a solitary victim of the infection wandering alone with no horde to be found. Rey knows better, she has seen enough of the beasts to know that there is no such thing as a stray zombie. Wherever there is one, a horde is sure to follow. She attributes it to the rabies; an animal’s disease that leads to animalistic behavior. They travel in packs; like mongrel dogs. But she cannot share her theories now, not only would it lead to questions about _how_ she knows what pathogen had caused the plague, but it would also serve as a homing beacon for every zombie in their general vicinity. Silence. They need silence. 

 

But they don’t have it for long. Some boy whose name Rey hadn’t bothered to learn, quivering with anxiety, white with fear, breaks. He fires his pistol into the brush. And for a single, quiet moment they all stand slack jawed in the thunderous silence that follows a gunshot. No birds sing in the trees. No leaves rattle against the cracked, dry earth. Not a blade of brown, dead, forest grass stirs. 

 

And then all hell breaks loose. 

 

Three gray, dead eyed beasts break through the thicket; one, a female, is bleeding profusely from its shoulder, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she throws her head back and _screeches_. A cry for help, there is a horde nearby and this bitch has just broadcasted their location to the entirety of it. The hunt is on, and once again, for the first time in millennia, man is the prey. They burst into action as the creatures give chase, howling and clicking and cooing at their next meal. 

 

“Go! Go! Go!” Poe shouts, taking up the rear like any good squadron leader would. 

 

Rey gasps, lungs burning after weeks of complacency and recovery in the compound. But she can’t stop now. She _won’t_. Death isn’t an option, it never has been, no matter how much she has tried to convince herself otherwise she has never truly wanted to die. And yet again she has found herself standing at death's dark door, knocking with a confident fist, beckoning tauntingly to the wraith, _‘Hello? Is anybody home’_? And here he has come again, answering her call. 

 

Rey glances over her shoulder to see that one of the males is gaining on them, his face looks half mauled; like some sort of animal had a go at him. She can see where his back molars grind together as he rushes them, nostrils flaring in anticipation as his long, decrepit fingers brush over the back of one of her comrades. Rey raises her pistol, levels it with the beast, and fires over her shoulder, all while still moving forward at a full sprint. She can’t contain her gasped laugh as the bullet enters straight through the zombie’s sternum, sending it reeling backwards onto the forest floor, buying them a precious second of time. But in the end it proves futile; more of them are breaking through the trees, flowing like water around bent, brown trunks. All howling and hissing and clicking as they size up their next meal. 

 

It seems that this might be it. They’ll meet their end at the hands of this horde, swallowed whole by the swarm, or worse; infected and left a husk, shambling and squawking at every noise, forever hungry, starvation gnawing at a swollen, rotting stomachs. But then Rey hears it; _running water_. The rush of it is distant, but grows nearer with each strained stride. A river. Water. Safety. 

 

“Make for the water!” She shouts, “They hate water!” 

 

She can see it now, the brown waters of a rushing river. Even with the lack of rainfall this one seems high enough to offer them respite, a chance to regroup. The relief she feels as she watches Rose break the surface is indescribable. They still stand a chance, they haven’t failed yet. 

 

When she reaches the shore she leaps, dog-paddling across the current and feeling immense relief when she reaches the center and finds that the toes of her boots don't touch the silty bottom. Even if one zombie has the wherewithal to try and cross, it'll be swept away unless they possess the ability to swim. 

 

Which they don't. Because they have rabies. And a hallmark symptom of rabies is hydrophobia. 

 

As she crawls up and onto the sharp slate pebbles of the opposite bank she collapses. Not caring that the pointed stones dig unpleasantly into the palms of her hands, press awkwardly into her thighs and knees. She lays on her stomach and focuses on steadying her breathing, listening as her companions slosh out of the river on both sides of her. 

 

“Rey?” She hears Poe, feels him lean over her, laying a hand on her back, “You okay?”

 

“Did they stop?” Rey asks, keeping her forehead pressed into the slate of the river bank. She can't look. Doesn't want to witness with her own eyes the terrible sight of dead men and women swimming, or worse, drowning. Choking on silty brown water as it rises up and over their matted heads, howling like maimed animals, all of their humanity long ago stripped away by the brutality of the virus. 

 

“Yea,” Poe breathes, astonished, “I’ve never seen them do anything like this before… look, Rey.” 

 

She does, hesitantly rising up onto her hands and knees and spinning around to face the source of the ungodly racket behind them. A morbid chorus of clicking and screeching and the chomping of teeth. But they are not crossing, none of them dare to attempt the swim. They stand in a writhing line, shoving and growling at one another three feet back from the dampness of the river bank. Rey likens it to a herd of sheep standing at the edge of a cliff, the ones on the edge see the danger of the sheer drop; but those behind them, hungry for more fresh grass on which to graze, stupid in their hunger, shove forward, not understanding the bellows of their herd mates until it is far too late. And just like those sheep thrown from that sad height, the raging creatures at the rear of the horde shove their ravenous brethren forward and into the lapping shallows of the winding river. 

 

They cry out like dying animals as the water touches and swallows their graying, dead flesh; those who are strong enough quickly retreat, screeching all the while and shaking their bodies wildly, but those who are weak, the emaciated and dehydrated and wounded, they are unable to rise. Now that they have been knocked down there is no getting back up. Their wails are the most harrowing. The dying cries sound blood-chillingly human compared to the usual animal grunts and moans. As she watches one, the one she had shot, drag itself confusedly along the bank whimpering, she swears she can see a flash of humanity behind its pale eyes. It looks up, craning its neck and letting its cracked, blood-caked lips fall open, and it seems to look at her, _into her_ as it whines from the back of its raw, parched throat. 

 

Rey can’t stop watching, can’t tear her eyes away from the morbid sight as it croons to her; it has to be directed at her, there’s no other explanation. This paltry thing, withering away before her very eyes, is capable of some sort of higher thought. In what capacity, she can’t be certain. But there is feeling in those unseeing eyes. 

 

The creature emits one final, shrill cry, and then raises a scarred, bloody hand, extending it outward, its fingers twitching. It reaches for _her_. Rey’s confusion is only compounded further when it willfully thrusts its head beneath the surface of the grimy water, and holds there. She watches as bubbles rise to the surface, slow at first and then with more vigor. The zombie is drowning. The thing chose to drown itself rather than try to struggle any longer against the weight of its own dying body. It stops struggling; the only indication that it had ever been alive is the trail of red blood flowing away from its body, still leaking from the gunshot wound no doubt. 

 

And then Rey understands. She understands why it had looked to her, cried to her, reached out to her with its dying breath. It was _thanking_ her. 

 

A wave of intense nausea overwhelms her senses, and she doubles over, spilling her meager breakfast onto the muddy ground between her knees. _They feel._

 

“Rey!” Poe’s shout distracts her from the guilt that bubbles high in her belly, “Rey we need to go now!” 

 

She leaps to her feet, casting a glance to the horde, or to where the horde had been just a moment before. Several stragglers are still struggling against the water, screaming and screeching in agony and terror, but the others are on the move. They run parallel to the river bank, clicking and cooing to one another, communicating. They’re searching for a crossing. 

 

“Shit,” Rey hisses, and follows Poe and the rest of her team in racing straight on into the dense forest ahead of them, pine needles padding her heavy footsteps but also serving to slow her slightly, they are a slipping hazard to say the least. And under such dire circumstances, to slip is to die. 

 

“The cabin!” She hears Rose pant from three steps ahead of her, then she shouts so everyone might hear her, “The cabin is just ahead! Follow the stream! We can lock ourselves in and barricade!” 

Rey glances to her left to see a familiar tributary flowing lazily along beside them. She remembers wading through it with Kylo, feverish and dying, slung over her shoulder. The memories nearly swallow her whole, the depth of them, the way she can feel his sweat soaking through her thin shirt, can feel his blood on her palms. It comes close to overtaking her entirely, sending her reeling onto the forest floor in anguish, but she push through. She shakes the vision from her head, repressing the harrowing memory, and keeps moving forward, tears streaking fast and hot over her dirtied cheeks. 

 

Rey can see it, the cabin, the place where Kylo nearly died wrapped in her arms, the place where she had been ready to end her own life rather than continue on alone. They all stumble through the door, gasping for breath. Poe slams it shut behind them then locks it. 

 

“Quick,” He commands, “Cover the windows!” And he rushes to grab one of the sleeping bags that is splayed haphazardly over the dirt covered floor. 

 

Rey follows quickly behind him, not realizing which one she has grabbed until she feels something flake against her skin. She drops the nylon immediately and looks down to find her hands speckled with flakes of dried blood. Her lover’s blood. It seems that fate itself doesn’t want her to forget. She is overwhelmed by a sudden wave of despondent grief and drops the bag, staggering backwards until her shoulders connect with the far wall. She slides down it, until she hits the floor, all the while unable to tear her teary gaze from the blood on her hands. 

 

No one seems to notice, and the miniscule piece of her that is still present in the chaos of the outside world is grateful for it. The room darkens significantly, the windows must be covered. Good. Darkness is good. She can’t see the blood on her hands in the shadows. But she can still hear his frantic heartbeat echoing against her eardrums, still feel his shallow breath ghosting her cracked lips. 

 

_Stop._ She wills herself. _I need to stop._

 

“Paige!” A shrill cry snaps her out of the post-traumatic flashback, dragging her back into the present. 

 

“Paige.” It’s Rose, knelt on the floor beside a crumpled figure, “Paige what’s wrong?” She’s desperate, keening softly over the woman in front of her. 

 

Paige. Paige is Rose’s older sister, if Rey’s muddled memory is correct. They’ve never spoken, she’s not even sure if she has seen the woman before today. “What’s wrong?” She manages, crawling to Rose’s side. Her voice cracks as the remainder of her tears clear away. 

 

“I-” Rose gasps, cradling her sister's hand in her own, blood leaking between her small, quivering digits, “I don’t know.”

 

A lie, one she is telling herself. Poe kneels on the opposite side of Rose and peels her clutching fingers away from her sister's bloodied hand. He wipes away the blood where it wells up from the wound and spills over her shock sallowed skin. Rey flinches away when she sees the clear imprint of teeth torn into her flesh. A bite. 

 

“ _Shit_.” Poe hisses, looking down and away, eyes scanning the room, taking in the worried faces of his many companions, his charges, his responsibility. Rey can see the cogs turning behind his eyes, the realization dawning on him that, he can’t keep them safe and harbor and infected in their midst at the same time. Their options are limited. From the grim expression that casts a shadow over his face, he can only see one. 

 

But Rey knows that there are two, at least she hopes she knows. If she’s wrong it could spell the end for them. 

 

“Does someone here have a blade?” Rey looks over her shoulder, scrutinizing the group for any sign of a sheath or a machete tucked into a belt. They had been advised to prepare for close quartered combat. No one steps forward to offer her one, and Rey suspects it's because they know what she plans to do, and want no part in it. She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. 

 

She tugs a hunting knife from her belt. Kylo had given it to her the night before with a kiss on the head and a request that she stay safe. It’s six inches of shined, cold, serrated steel, adorned with a fine, leather bound hilt. 

 

“The hand needs to come off.” Rey says plainly, bluntly. Voiding herself of all emotion. She’ll have to be the one to do it, she suspects. 

 

“What?” Paige gasps wide eyed, “No!”

 

Poe looks at Rey, shocked, the blood draining from his face as his eyes pass between the knife that scorches her palm, and the pulsing wound on Paige’s hand. “Are you sure about this Rey?” 

 

“No.” Rey admits, “But it’s her only chance. We both know it’s either this or the bullet.” 

 

“Please…” Paige whimpers and turns her head to press it into the crook of her uninjured arm.

 

“You’ll die if we don’t, Paige.” Rose pleads, voice heavy with tears, “Please.”

 

Paige says nothing more, just whimpers into her jacket sleeve and fully extends her wounded limb out towards Rey, exposing her bloodied wrist. Rey looks to Poe for confirmation. And he nods grimly. He undoes his belt buckle and presses the leather strip to Paige’s lips. 

 

“Bite down on this. If you think you’re going to pass out, don’t fight it.” 

 

Paige takes the leather between her teeth and whimpers, clenching her fist tight. 

 

Rey examines the bite closely, praying that there might be some indication of how far the virus has traveled into the woman’s bloodstream. It’s a foolish hope. Rabies is a slow and silent killer, and this altered form must be much the same as its docile cousin. It invades the peripheral nervous system and makes its way through the body, to the brain where it tricks its way past the blood brain barrier--one of the most essential membranes in the body--and begins its full on assault. It hijacks the neurons that serve as the body’s information network, filling the salivary glands with copies of itself and causing acute swelling of the brain. In ordinary rabies, it takes weeks, even months, to reach the central nervous system, and once it does death is certain. But this strain is different, it works in a matter of hours, but it doesn’t destroy its host, instead it transforms them into the perfect vector; the singular goal of any organism is to perpetuate itself, and this virus is frighteningly efficient. For all Rey knows it could already have found its way into Paige’s spinal cord and be shuttling its way through her axons, rocketing towards her brain. 

 

Rey is grateful to Doc for the first time since he had bandaged her cheek. It’s thanks to his notes that she better understands this infection, and how to potentially combat it. He had hypothesized that, if a person was infected by limb rather than trunk, a quick amputation might save their life. But he had also noted that the virus mutated at a rapid rate, and several strains of it were becoming more and more efficient at reaching the brain hastily. Rey puts Paige’s chances at fifty-fifty; though she keeps such thoughts to herself. 

 

Rey lays her blade gently over the spot just above the slight rise of the woman’s wrist bone. Marking the spot as her point of entry. She casts determined eyes to Rose and Poe, “Hold her down.” They both oblige immediately. Poe grabbing onto her shoulder and Rose restraining the condemned limb. 

 

“Someone tie her off at the elbow.” Rey demands over her shoulder, and the boy she had saved from the grasps of the zombie before steps forward. Untying his shoelace and securing it tightly at the scout’s elbow. Rey hopes that she’s doing this right, her only medical knowledge comes from a few half-remembered health classes and TV dramas. 

 

Rey nods her thanks, and begins. She tries to make the first pass of the knife over her skin quick to limit the initial shock of the situation, but a serrated blade does not a clean cut make, and Paige howls against the belt jammed between her teeth, thrashing against Poe’s strong hands. Rey quickly learns that tact won’t serve her well here, she must be quick and brutal, must sever the nerves of her hand as quickly as possible before the virus can advance any further into her body. 

 

“Someone get over here and wipe away the blood!” Rey demands, sawing hard against pliant flesh. Someone--Rey doesn’t take the time to see who--does, using torn strips clothing to sop away the crimson liquid that pours from the incision. 

 

Rey hears someone behind her gag as she begins to saw into the bone, a sickening grinding sound filling the air of the cabin. Rey’s own stomach churns at the sensations vibrating up the knife and into her palm; but she continues, gritting her teeth, and reigning in her gag reflex. 

 

It’s ten minutes of howling, and writhing, and the sickening squelch of blood on bone and steel on flesh. And when the hand finally falls away, landing on the dirty floor with a sickening _thump_ , Rey drops the knife, spins around on her knees and wretches onto the ground. But nothing comes up. She dry heaves as Poe and Rose rush to wrap the stump, first pouring some of their precious drinking water over it. 

 

Paige falls silent and still on the floor; unconscious no doubt. Quite possibly in shock. But at least she’s not dead, or worse, a zombie. 

 

Then they hear it, the first bellows and howls of the hunting horde. Still distant, but drawing ever nearer to their location. Everyone falls silent, dropping to the floor so they might not cast silhouettes against the covered windows. They only have one option now, an option that severely alters their plans. They must wait for the horde to pass. 

 

Two hours pass by, slow and maddening; every tap against the wooden walls, every scratch against the glass raises the hairs on the back of Rey’s neck. But the waves of the living dead haven’t clued in to their location yet. They sound, from the soft crunch of their feet on the pine needles, that they are passing the cabin by. 

 

As the steady drumbeat of heavy feet on the substrate slows into a weak patter, Rey rises onto her knees and lifts one of the sleeping bags slightly so that she might peek out the corner of the window. There are only a few stragglers lingering about now, nothing that they can’t handle, a few well aimed bullets and they’ll be in the clear, hopefully. The rest of the horde could still be nearby, waiting for them to come out from hiding. But they don’t have much of a choice. They need to reach the prison by nightfall lest Leia and the vanguard lose a vital portion of their strategy. The infiltrators.

 

They’ll have to take their chances with the horde; besides, they now have a handy piece of bait. Rey chuckles darkly at her own pun, earning an irritated glare from Poe, who quickly turns his attention back to where Rose guards her sister in the corner. Paige has woken, but she is very weak. She’ll have to stay behind, and Rey suspects that Rose will insist that she remain with her sister.

 

Two good soldiers lost to them, but Rey understands. If it were Finn, or Kylo, or Poe she would do the same. 

 

Poe beckons her over with a single finger, glancing nervously back to the sisters, indicating just what has him concerned. Rey kneels beside him and he leans towards her, whispering low in her ear, “Rose is trying to hide Paige from my view.” 

 

_Oh. That’s not a good sign._

 

Rey gulps, and they sit together, side by side watching. She doesn’t know how much time passes between Poe’s revelation and the first seizure, but it can’t be more than half an hour. Paige emits a long, high choking noise, before falling into violent convulsions, limbs jerking wildly against the floor and eyes rolling back into her skull. Rose sobs as Poe shoves her aside, quickly flipping Paige onto her side so she won’t choke on her own vomit. 

 

Rey feels her stomach drop, fear burning hot in her chest. Paige is infected. The virus has reached her brain in just over two hours. What an efficient thing it is. Primed for creating vectors. Her hand twitches over the glock at her hip. There’s only one way this can end. They’d tried their only other option, and it had failed. 

 

Once the convulsions have stopped the prone woman remains unconscious for about thirty seconds before she jerks back into reality, gasping for air and clawing at her throat. “Help--” She chokes, the word contorted by the copious amounts of saliva she is producing. A hallmark symptom of rabies. The virus’ way of propagating itself. Rey tugs Poe back and away from where Paige drools onto the floor. 

 

Rey tugs her gun from her belt, and Rose screeches, alerting all of the beasts outside to their presence within the cabin. 

 

“Please, no!” She begs, falling on her knees in front of Rey, groveling like it might save her sister’s life, “Please you can’t!” She’s sobbing, deep, heavy sobs, grief laden. Deep down she must know that her sister is a goner, what little time the woman has left will be agonizing, and then she will be gone. Replaced by a snarling blood starved beast that would slaughter her own sister without a thought. 

 

“I’m sorry, Rose.” Poe sounds close to tears himself. He reaches for the gun, “Let me, Rey. I’m the leader here. I should do it.” 

 

Rey scowls at him, worriedly, but reluctantly hands over her weapon despite her reservations. The creatures outside are pounding on the door, the walls, howling, begging to be let in. They don’t have much time, she can’t waste precious seconds arguing. 

 

“Please!” Rose howls, collapsing forward so that her forehead touches the dirt, her fists pounding hard against the ground, “No!” 

 

There is the sharp and sudden sound of shattering glass as one of the windows is smashed in by a raging, starving zombie. Rey looks over her shoulder to see the papery limb streaked with fresh blood and mottled with broken glass, grasping and tugging at the window frame, the face of its owner pressed flush to the unbroken glass, its teeth chomping. 

 

Rey snatches the gun back from Poe with near violence and shoots the damned thing out of the window, the bullet entering cleanly through its left eye, rocketing out the back of its matted skull and splattering infected brain matter over the forest floor. Two weeks of target practice with Kylo have certainly paid off. 

 

“Is that what you want for her?!” Rey snarls at Rose, all patience lost, desperate to continue on their mission, to see her lover again. This scout may be lost to them, but Kylo yet lives, and she _will_ return to him. “You want her to become a fucking mindless husk?! You want your own sister to live on as an animal?! A _thing_?!” 

 

“Only it won’t be your sister anymore,” Rey continues, lower, more derisively, “ _Your sister is as good as dead. Say your final goodbyes and spare her the agony of life as a walking corpse._ ” 

 

Rose sobs incomprehensibly into the floor, still genuflecting for mercy. “I--I can’t.” 

 

“You’re going to have to.” It’s cruel, but it’s the truth. Now isn’t the time to soften her words, no matter how deep they might cut. They have a mission that people are relying on them to complete. 

 

The pounding on the door has grown more intense. Rey can hear the wood splintering behind her, and the cocking of firearms as the others prepare to rain hell down on the imposing zombies. 

 

Rose shakes with the intensity of her sobs, “Okay,” she gasps, “Just get it over with.” 

 

Rey doesn’t let Poe take the gun back, even when he reaches for it. She shoves him away. He knows this woman, has worked by her side in the compound for more than a month. The guilt would crush him. Rey takes two steps toward where Paige is laid out over the floor, wide eyes following the gun in Rey’s hand. 

 

“Please…” She whimpers, but it isn’t a plea for mercy, for life. Paige knows what comes once the seizures subside, knows what happens once her brain has swelled inside her skull and her higher functions have become lost to her. Paige Tico is begging for death. Rey grants it to her. 

 

It speaks volumes to how her experiences have changed her that she doesn’t flinch as Paige’s body jerks harshly against the floor, as her brain matter is sprayed in a fine mist over the far wall, as her sister wails and the door finally gives way. This is just another memory to push down deep, to lock away so that it will only come to haunt her when she dreams. 

 

They handle the few stragglers with ease. A few well aimed bullets, just like Rey had thought, and they’re dead on the ground without further incident. Poe drags Rose away from her sister’s corpse before she can touch it; it’s ripe with infection, and they won’t let Rose damn herself in her grief. 

 

They depart with heavy hearts, leaving the body of Rose’s sister behind. They’ll come back for it eventually, but for now they must push onward. Towards something somehow worse than this. Towards hell. 

 

They make it to the edge of the forest just as the sun has dipped below the horizon line, the sky cast a dusty pink in its fading light. They won’t have to bide their time for long. The frontal assault will begin soon. They are shocked to see that the horde that had plagued them, taken a friend from them, is now pressed up against the eastern fence of the prison, howling and shrieking and making a god-awful racket. Good. One more distraction. They can hear distant machine gun fire, a chorus of steady pops, as the men try to fend off the horde. 

 

Then the barrage begins. The steady beat of grenades violently exploding along the north side of the prison. The vanguard has arrived. Everyone jumps to action; even Rose, who has suppressed her grief, tucking it away to be felt at a later time. 

 

They hug the forest edge as they make their way towards the back of the prison, the south side. The sound of the battle raging to the north should keep the horde distracted, but the watchtowers are most certainly manned by snipers. They must keep to the shadows. 

 

Once they have rounded the back and caught sight of the door they make a break for the building. Rey’s lungs burn hot in her chest and her knees throb after a day's worth of hiking and running. But adrenaline runs fast and heavy through her veins. She will survive this. She will kill Hux and end this foul operation. No one else will know the pain that she has known. Never again will a woman find herself captured by strange men, chained to cold walls in dark rooms, and raped to pacify a group of rogue criminals. Rey has brought death here this day, and she fully intends to deliver. 

 

The door is heavy, crafted of stainless steel and locked from the inside. Rey presses her gun to the door and fires, blowing the lock into smithereens that clank loudly as they skip over the hard concrete floor on the other side of the door. It is regrettable to make so much noise, but no amount of shouldering or pounding would have gained them entry. They need to hurry, anyone nearby will now be rushing to their location, armed, already alert due to the full-scale attack that bombards the front of their fortress. 

 

Once inside Rey finds it difficult to breathe. It’s so familiar; the dimly lit halls lined with heavy doored cells, the fluorescent lights that flicker overhead, the smell of sweat and suffering assaulting her nostrils. She wants to turn back. To run away, back out to face the horde. It would be far easier than this. 

 

She jolts when Poe places a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We should look for their generators.” He says. And he’s right, it’s more than probable that they’ll be down here, on the lowest level and towards the back of the prison, their precious power source guarded by hundreds of hardened men and cold, winding halls. 

 

It’s not difficult to discover their location. They follow a low rumbling sound through the corridors until it becomes a steady roar. The door to the generator room is wide open and unguarded. The man responsible likely having fled his post to assist in rebuking the frontal assault. 

 

Using feet and fists and pipes and bats they smash the heavy machines into scrap. Each one they destroy increases the intensity of the oppressing silence that engulfs them. But no one dares speak to break it; they are all too anxious, bodies tense with anticipation as they draw ever nearer to their goal. Once the final generator has been brutalized, and they are left in inky blackness, Poe produces several flashlights from his bag, distributing them evenly between the two groups that will soon separate. 

 

Rey flicks hers on and shines it over the scrap pile they have created. Wondering briefly if anyone has a lighter on them. The gasoline that had once powered the generators now spills over the floor in fine, shining rivers, pooling around her boots. But to set this place alight would be foolhardy. They don’t know how long the final leg of their mission will take, and Rey sure as hell doesn’t intend to roast alive in this hellhole. 

 

“Alright,” Poe swallows thickly, nodding to Rey, “This is where we part, isn’t it?” 

 

It is. The room where Hux holds his slaves is on this first floor, but Rey must climb to the second to locate Hux’s office. No doubt the little weasel of a man is preparing to flee now that he has been thrust into darkness. 

 

“Yeah.” Is all Rey can manage, smiling at Poe sadly. To come all this way, to reunite with him just to lose him again… She can’t fathom it. 

 

And then they break. Rey taking four with her, three men and a woman, people whose names she doesn’t know, and doesn’t care to learn. If they die here she will feel less grief if she doesn’t know their names. 

 

It’s easy enough to find a stairwell, and easier still to locate Hux’s office. It had clearly once been the seat of the warden, from the credentials hung on the wall, the framed photographs lining the sheetrock. But now it is inhabited by one of his charges, a sick and demented man who longs to cause pain to others. To break women until they are nothing but husks to be used by he and his men as they please. Base. Foul. Detestable. 

 

It’s a rather small space, and she motions for her party to remain outside while she sweeps the room. They don’t want to become trapped, crowded in a room like sheep awaiting slaughter. She passes through the door and it shuts softly behind her, the glass window adorning its face allowing her people to watch her with utmost vigilance and she searches for the place where the rat has hidden himself. 

 

He’s here. She can practically taste him in the air; sour and cowering in fear. 

 

She sweeps the room with her flashlight, pointing it into every nook and cranny, and finding nothing. Maybe he isn’t here, maybe…

 

_What’s that?_

 

The beam of her flashlight freezes over what must have once served as a gun rack from some prized rifle; but now it houses something else. Something very dear to her. Her Louisville Slugger, the six inch nail still driven through the fat end of it, pristine and unharmed. It sickens her that Hux had taken this as some sort of a trophy, a mark of his having won over she and Kylo. But more than is disturbs her it fills her with sudden, unbridled joy, and she reaches for it, for the familiarity of happier times. Forgetting that she hadn’t yet shone her light under the warden’s desk. 

 

Before Rey’s fingers can wrap around the familiar handle of her beloved weapon, there is an arm wrapped tight around her throat, and she is jerked violently to face the door. 

 

“ _Whore_.” A familiar, accented voice seethes in her ear, and she finds herself paralyzed, petrified as she feels him run the edge of a knife feather light over the skin of her cheek. Over the scar that she had earned in this place. 

 

She had dropped both her gun and her flashlight in her shock, and now she is defenseless. Held captive by an utter brute, a brute who wholly intends to kill her. She’s certain of it. The light from her comrades’ flashlights shines bright in her wide eyes, and she flinches away from it, struggling against Hux. 

 

They’re shouting at him. But she can’t tell what they’re saying. Her ears are already ringing. She’s already dying. 

 

The cold steel of a knife entering her abdomen is a peculiar feeling, one that Rey can't quite seem to liken to anything she has felt before; she’s already begun to dissociate as he brings it down twice more, and on the third thrust he twists his wrist brutally, and she feels the blade break inside of her, the resounding snap, echoing in her ears, rattling her teeth. 

 

Hux lets her go. And she hears gunfire echo through the prison as she collapses onto the floor. Her vision swimming, her hands clutching at her abdomen, nothing holding her organs inside of her but her blood slickened hands. 

 

Rey can feel hands on her body, lifting her. She can hear voices shouting, panicked. It sounds as though she is submerged under miles of water, the surface slipping further and further away, the darkness of the eternal ocean creeping over her vision until there is nothing left to see. 

 

She goes under with one final, desperate plea; _I’m sorry, Kylo. I loved you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops. 
> 
> Direct hate mail to my tumblr: [Link](http://oscarius.tumblr.com)
> 
> And I also wrote an alternate ending to chapter thirteen, hence why this is now a series. You can find that here: [Link](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11788614)
> 
> (Please do note the lack of a major character death tag, please don't flay me just yet)
> 
> As always, comments and Kudos fuel my spirit and inspire inspiration. Love ya.
> 
> -annie


	22. Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We finally get a glimpse into Kylo's mind.

**Kylo's PoV**

Victory comes to them far too easily. They cut through Hux’s paltry forces like a hot knife through butter, felling them like they’re nothing more than flies. In just two hours time the fighting has ceased. Most of Hux’s men - disloyal at best, mutineers at worst - have either fled into the surrounding forests to live another day, or have retreated back into the prison. They will face execution later. For now they have another enemy to contend with.

 

A horde is assaulting the western wall of the prison. Kylo suspects that the army of corpses had been the real reason for such hardened criminals to flee or retreat. Barricaded in their fortress they had hardly seen such feral beasts, and now the things are knocking on the front door. But to Leia’s men it is nothing. The horde is small, clearly already massacred by another band of survivors; no more than forty individuals make up the bulk of it, with a few stragglers hanging about the forest edge. 

 

They cut through the beasts with frightening efficiency, tearing through the heart of the horde with bullets and blades and bombs. It’s over in under an hour. They had planned for the siege to last an entire night, but it’s only ten o’clock. The stars twinkle and dance in the great expanse of the Texas sky and victory cries rise from the ranks to greet them. Arms thrown in the air, whoops and howls. Men and women hug, laughing, their greatest enemy is defeated. Kylo turns to congratulate his estranged mother but stops short when he finds her scowling, eyes trained on the treeline. 

 

“What is it?” Kylo’s finger twitches over the trigger of his gun.

 

“We’ll need to hurry out of here once the splinter teams save those girls. More men escaped into the forest than died on the field. And I have no doubt that they’ll be out for revenge soon enough.” She explains, grimly. 

 

Kylo nods in agreement, then looks back to the hulking gray mass of the prison. Rey is probably still inside, dealing with the remnants of Hux’s ‘army’. It will all be over soon, and then they can finally be at peace, together. Or as close to peace as a post-apocalyptic world will allow. 

 

All of that comes to a screeching halt as Poe rounds the side of the building, stumbling over human and zombie remains alike, too panicked to avoid them. His shouts for help are drowned out by the revelling, but Kylo can see the paleness of the man’s skin from where he stands, the dread emblazoned upon his usually collected, handsome face. 

 

Something is _very_ wrong. 

 

As he draws closer his pleas become clear, “We need a medic right-fucking-now!” He gasps, stopping in front of Kylo and Leia, “Bring a truck or something she’s bleeding out!” 

 

Leia opens her mouth to speak, but Kylo is already on the man, grabbing him roughly by his shoulders and shaking him, “Who?” He snarls, “Who’s bleeding out?” _Please, any name, anyone but her,_

 

“Rey.” Poe sobs, “Please, we had first aid kits with us but nothing to deal with an injury like this. Hux got her, we got him back but not before he cut her. We need help _now_.” 

 

Leia has already jumped into action, waving down one of the medics who had accompanied them. 

 

Kylo stands pale faced, not fully comprehending what he has just heard. That can’t be. There must have been a mistake. Rey can’t be dying. She’s made it this far, _they’ve made it this far_ ; how could she die here? 

 

He moves without thinking, following Poe and his mother and the medic to a large, white pickup truck. He climbs into the bed while his mother opens the driver’s side door. She looks so odd driving such a monster of a machine. The tiny woman is undaunted by its size, she drives it with practiced ease. 

 

Poe leads them around to the back of the prison. Despite the sliding window behind his head being open, Kylo can’t hear what the occupants of the cab are saying. Their voices are drowned out by the immense thundering in his ears. He feels like he’s a simple passenger in his own body, his limbs won’t respond to him, his fingers won’t curl at will. His vision is blurred, hearing distorted. This is the end of the line, then? He hadn’t thought himself ready, but if Rey-- if his heart is gone, then he will happily die with the barrel of his gun pressed firmly into his gullet. He won’t try to exist without her. It is an impossibility. And if there is a God, Kylo will hiss and curse and swing at the bastard while the angels drag him down to hell. Kylo will make that God pay for what has happened to his woman. No one touches her and escapes unscathed. Nothing of Earth, nor Heaven, nor Hell.

 

And then the truck begins to slow, and he turns his head to see several people crowded around a lump in the dry grass. His heart begins to thunder and his pupils blow wide. _Rey_. If this is the end, then he will die here with her. 

 

He vaults himself out of the bed of the truck easily. His muscles, previously sore from the fighting, are strengthened by the adrenaline that courses like fire through his veins. He’s at her side in a moment, sliding on his knees over the ground and stopping just short of her prone form. 

 

“Oh God.” Kylo pales, an anguished gasp escaping his constricting throat. She looks dead. Rey looks _dead_. 

 

She is laid across the dusty earth on her back, hands at her sides. Her midsection is covered with some sort of fabric, but its pale hue does little to hide the blood that saturates it. Her skin is pale, from pain or loss of blood, he doesn’t know. It could be both. Her hazel eyes are open, glazed, staring up to the star speckled sky, blinking but not seeing. Her lips parted to take in shallow, dying breaths. 

 

“ _Rey_.” He entreats, letting his dirtied hand come to rest on her arm. She feels cold, too cold for the warm Texas evening. She doesn’t look at him, the only indication she gives of having heard him is the closing of her sallow eyelids, and a soft sigh as unconsciousness takes her. 

 

Kylo gives no cry of anguish, no final mournful howl. Instead he lowers his ear to her chest, desperate to find a heartbeat. It’s weak, so faint that it is nearly imperceptible, _but it’s there_. A fluttering _thump, thump, thump_. He bursts into action, shoving the others that surround her dying body aside with barely restrained ferociousness, and scoops Rey into his arms. She whimpers softly against his chest as he rushes her back to the truck where the medic is waiting with the door to the rear cab opened wide. He whispers a broken apology into her hair, but doesn’t slow his pace. He can’t afford to slow down when with each passing second she slips further and further away from him.

 

He takes care as he hands her legs off to the medic, supporting her shoulders with gentle hands as they angle her into the cab. Once she’s in he quickly jumps in after her, crowding the back seat. But he won’t ride in the bed, he won’t be away from her when any moment she could breathe her last, precious breath. Kylo will be with Rey at the end. He cradles her head in his lap, stroking her hair more for his own sanity than anything, as the medic begins to hurriedly work over her, tearing away the bloodied fabric and examining what must be several wounds with tentative, practiced fingers. 

 

“Keep your fingers on her pulse point,” The medic commands, eyes not straying from his hurried work, “If it stops tell me right away.” 

 

Kylo nods, pressing his right index and middle fingers just under her jaw, just over her carotid artery. It beats weakly and irregularly, but it beats yet. Precious oxygen still reaching her brain, the place where everything that is Rey lies dormant, so close to death that Kylo can smell the rot, taste it on his palate. He wants to scream and cry and beg for her to return to him, but he can’t. Instead he leans forward, fingers till pressed firm to the delicate skin of her throat, and presses his lips to her forehead. Then he nuzzles there, her hairline brushing his nose. She smells of sweat and coppery blood.

 

Kylo feels air stirr against his cheeks as her eyelids flutter open, and he lifts his head just far enough so that he can look into her eyes. 

 

“I love you.” He croaks, thumb running over her pale cheek, smearing blood over her clammy skin. 

 

The ghost of a smile touches the corners of her chapped, bleeding lips; touches the dim light in her eyes. Her fingertips rise up, brushing feather light over his cheek. Still blood slicked, he feels the trail they leave over his skin as though they had been covered in liquid fire; napalm to cling to him, to burn itself so deep into his flesh that he will never escape its wrath, that he will never live another day without smelling burnt flesh, will never outgrow the scar. 

 

And then Rey’s heart stops beating.

 

Her life blood gone still in her veins. 

 

She breathes one final, pathetic breath, and goes limp in his arms. 

 

Dead.

 

His heart is dead.

 

Her hand drops lifelessly to her side. Her vein ceases to pulse against his trembling fingers, and Kylo feels all of his will to live leave his war torn body. The strangled sound that passes his cracked lips is hardly fit to live, but the medic hears it and understands immediately. The man begins to pound against her chest with balled fists, stopping every three to press his ear to her breast and listen for her heart. Kylo has to look away, he can’t watch as the last vestiges of life flee his Rey. He can’t breathe. He wants to die. 

 

The pounding continues, interrupted by moments of terrible silence as the medic listens for a pulse. Nothing. Nothing. _Nothing_. 

 

And suddenly the truck jolts to a stop. Kylo looks up to see that they are mere feet from the front doorway of his childhood home; a worried Harter Kalonia peaking out through the blinds of an upstairs window. They’ve made the thirty minute drive in fifteen. 

 

Two medics have already burst through the front door with a gurney between them and Kylo throws the truck door open, leaping out and taking Rey’s body into his arms, he holds her tight to his chest for an endless moment and then gives her over to them. 

 

He sobs, just now feeling the wetness of tears disturb where her blood is smeared over his cheek, “She’s not breathing.” 

 

They say nothing, just hoist her onto the gurney and rush her inside. Leaving Kylo, Leia, and Poe to watch after their retreating forms beneath of gibbous moon. 

 

He feels more than sees Poe come to stand beside him, offering an oddly brotherly reassurance with his company. A strong hand comes to rest on Kylo’s shoulder, giving him a squeeze. 

 

“What happened?” Kylo chokes, eyes locked on the window that overlooks the yard from the makeshift hospital room; the lights are on inside, that must be where they have taken Rey’s corpse. He wonders if they’re still trying to beat the life back into her, if they’re pressing defibrillator paddles to her body and shocking her. He hopes they haven’t. She deserves to be buried untouched, no burns to mar her beautiful breast. She should be laid to rest as pristinely as she lived.

 

Poe swallows hard, forcing back his own wave of despondency, and explains as level as a grieving man can, “I don’t know all of the details, but while we - I mean my team - was working on freeing the captive girls, we just heard these gunshots; _‘bang, bang, bang’_. We broke up, half of my people stayed behind to finish up with the girls--we hadn’t even broken the fucking lock yet--while the rest of us went after the gunfire. We ran into one of our guys on the stairs, he had blood all over his front, look like he’d seen a fucking ghost. And then the rest of them came down behind him, two of them carrying Rey, just covered in blood. I thought I could see a-- _an organ_ hanging out of her. _I thought she was dead, Kylo._ ” Poe’s voice breaks and he takes a moment to compose himself. Kylo doesn’t push, recounting such a tale isn’t a simple feat. One can’t just dissociate, separate themselves from it so soon after the trauma has occurred. 

 

“But she wasn’t,” He finally continues, voice only wavering slightly. Kylo glances over to find that the man is also entranced by the light in the window, watching with tearful, desperate eyes. “We rushed her outside and got her down, one guy took his shirt off and wrapped it around her to try and slow the bleeding. They said that she had gone into Hux’s office alone, and that he had been hiding in there. He got her, wrapped an arm around her neck and stabbed her, three times. Then he let her go and they shot him full of bullets. He’s dead.”

 

“Good fucking riddance,” Leia hisses, speaking for the first time since Kylo had rushed Rey into the truck. 

 

Kylo shakes his head, lowering his eyes to the ground, away from the artificial light that illuminates the yard, “And now Rey’s dead, too.” 

 

No one speaks. 

 

After a long moment of silence, of shared grief, Kylo makes for the house. His feet are concrete blocks in his boots, so heavy that each step takes enormous effort. But he manages. He makes it up the stairs and has to lean against the wall at the top of them to breathe for a moment. He can hear muffled voices coming from the infirmary. He is blinded by tears as he thinks of Rey, prone, torn open and bled out, laid across the same hospital bed that had nursed him back to life just weeks prior. Her body slowly withering in the same room where they had bared their souls to one another. Blurred as his vision may be, Kylo still manages to stumble away, down the familiar hallway and into the bedroom of his boyhood. A place where he had known so much pain, and confusion, and loss. 

 

Just the day before it had been filled with love and life. His childish bedspread is still wrinkled and stained from when they’d had sex on it, the used condom still sits soiled in the waste basket. Of course such a precious thing as love couldn’t last, nothing good ever lasted, not for Ben Solo, and certainly not for Kylo Ren. 

 

He finds it fitting, almost humorous in a sordid way, that he would come back to this place to die. It was in this room that Ben Solo had perished, and it is here that Kylo Ren will fade as well; effectively ending both of their legacies. The legacies of two broken boys with the same face. 

 

He fumbles through the drawers of his childhood desk, where he had spent more nights than not pretending to do homework. He smiles darkly when he finds it, a pocket knife his father had given him for one of his birthdays; he can’t remember which. One of the teenage ones he suspects, not that it matters now. He struggles to tug the blade from where it is tucked neatly into a slot in its hilt while he walks backwards towards his bed. 

 

Just as the backs of his knees make contact with the mattress and he falls backwards, the knife flips open with a metallic ‘ _click_ ’, and he grins, gazing down to where he holds the blade horizontal to his chest. He runs a trembling fingertip along its edge and hisses as it parts his skin like it is nothing more than paper.

 

Perfect. It’s kept its edge over all of these years. 

 

Kylo sighs and relaxes into the familiar sink of his mattress. Covering his eyes lazily with his forearm and letting the knife hang loose in his fingers. He will wait for now, until the hesitant knock on his door confirms the death of his light. And then, once they have all left to mourn away from her body, he will bring her here, hold her in his arms one last time, kiss her cold, breathless lips, and then slash his wrists so that he might be with her again. 

 

Kylo Ren believes in no god. But if there is one above he must be cruel and vindictive; taking Rey from him just as they had finally been on the brink of joy, of happiness, of a life shared between the two of them. Nothing matters anymore. A world without her is hardly a world at all, and certainly not one he intends to keep living-- _subsisting_ in. 

 

He lays there for a long time. He can hear the early morning birds beginning to titter out their sweet, teasing songs before anyone comes to disturb him. So gay in the light of morning, the rising sun warming their pretty feathers. He wants nothing more than to choke the life from each and every one of them. No one deserves happiness now, human nor animal. Not in a world where Rey no longer breathes. His woman. His heart. _His Rey_. Silent tears streak his cheeks, carrying flecks of dried blood with them. 

 

But eventually, inevitably, someone does come. Three soft knocks rap against his door, followed by a soft spoken, “Ben?”

 

Even through the muffling wood of his door Kylo recognizes his mother’s worried voice. How many times had he laid here and heard her say that name with that same fearful inflection? How many times had she tried to reach out to him only to be met with spite and bared teeth? He huffs. One more time, he supposes. One more time to disappoint his mother, to shame his father. And then he would be gone.

 

She opens to door without prompting, peeking in. Her inquisitive gaze wanders over where her grown son is spread over the bed. Kylo can see pain behind her dark eyes, his eyes. Her boy all grown up, nearly unrecognizable and ravaged by grief. 

 

“She’s alive, Ben.” The words are spoken shakily, uncertain. Perhaps she fears what his reaction will be. Will he think her a liar? 

 

He doesn’t. He rises slowly from the bed, flicking the knife shut and slipping it into his pocket. Kylo feels nothing as he comes to stand in front of the door, opening it so he can look down onto his mother. Numb. He will not hope. 

 

“Let me see her.” He says. Monotonous. He will not allow himself to be filled with boyish hope only to find Rey cold and dead in the infirmary. 

 

Leia nods, and silently leads him down the hallway. The door to the makeshift clinic is ajar, and she pushes it open, gesticulating for her son to enter with a sweep of a trembling hand. 

 

He brushes past her, and then past everyone else in the room--faceless medics, irrelevant to him. 

 

Rey is laid across the same bed he had been nursed to health in. A thin, bloody sheet covering her frail form. There is an IV in her arm, two of them, actually. Each attached to a different bag of clear, unidentifiable fluid. Besides those few changes, and the blood splattered over the floor, the scene seems too mundane. Where is the machine that breathes for her? Where are the bags of donor blood meant to replenish that which she had spilled on the battlefield? She may be alive, but he can tell from the grim look on Kalonia’s weary face that his Rey is still very near to death.

 

Kylo kneels at her bed side and takes one of her small hands into both of his own. Letting his thumbs glide over the soft skin on the back of it, tracing the veins that beat with precious life beneath her skin. He says nothing. Simply holds her hand and watches her with pained eyes. 

 

Eventually Kalonia begins to speak, explaining the details of the situation as carefully as she can, like Kylo is a live grenade, ready to burst into a flurry of shrapnel at any moment, “She has lost a lot of blood. But we got her heart beating again through sheer force of will. After that it was a matter of getting the knife blade out of her and stitching her up as best we could before she lost anymore blood.” 

 

“Will she live?” Kylo asks. The question is void of emotion, stated as though he is querying as to the location of the washroom, not after the mortality of his very heart. 

 

Kalonia swallows hard and continues, clinical, distanced from the raw emotions that permeate the room, “There was no damage to the intestines, by the grace of God. The abdominal wall was obviously weakened, but now that we’ve closed her up her chances are… _improved_. If she starts to bleed again, anytime within the next few days, I’m afraid those chances will significantly diminish.”

 

“She’ll rest then,” relief has begun to rise in his chest, welling up and hardening into a stone in his throat. Hope. What a frugal, dangerous thing. 

 

His mother clears her throat behind him, and approaches cautiously, laying a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t have time for that, Ben. The remnants of Hux’s forces are already on the move. We need to leave today, soon.” 

 

“That’s not an option.” He deadpans, his hope turning to ash in his chest. “If she is jostled, bumped even slightly she could--”

 

“Begin to hemorrhage, yes.” Kalonia steps in. “But there are concerns other than that, Ben. The only antibiotic I had left isn’t a powerful one. If an infection with _any_ resistance begins to grow inside of her, or at the wound site, there is very little we can do for her here.” 

 

Kylo rises to his feet, suddenly enthralled by a wave of grief inspired rage. It flickers hot across his skin, burns his throat and face and scalp, implores him to yell and spit and scream, “Then why the fuck did you revive her!” He shouts, “Why would you bring her back just to let her die again!” His mother looks at him with such sorrow, such forlorn despair that he knows he must be crying, sobbing even. _He will have to watch her die, again._

 

_His Rey._

 

_His heart._

 

“You still have options, Ben.” Somehow the doctor is still calm. He can hear so many people, medics and friends alike, sniffling around the tragic couple, but the doctor maintains her professional facade. “You have two, as I see it. As her next of kin, or the closest thing to it.”

 

“What are they?” His voice is choked, strangled by his thick, hot tears. His dark eyes trail over Rey’s still form and stop where her chest rises and falls rhythmically beneath the thin sheet. Alive. Just barely.

 

Kalonia reaches into her pocket and produces a syringe, filled with a clear, inconspicuous fluid. It could be anything; an inoculation for the flu or meningitis, a shot of steroids to help the body heal. But to think that it is one of those harmless things would make Kylo Ren a Goddamned fool, which he is not. Whatever chemical cocktail Kalonia has conjured up in that vaccine, it will kill Rey. She will be put down like a lame horse, too broken to race any longer. 

 

“This,” She explains, “Will be painless for her. It will only take a moment, and then her heart will stop. You can stay by her side the entire time, hold her hand, talk to her. It would spare her quite a bit of pain. Neither bleeding out nor dying of sepsis are pleasant ways to go.” 

 

Kylo gulps, kneeling beside his heart again, brushing his fingers along her arm, “What’s my second option?” 

 

 _What’s my only option_ , He might as well have said. 

 

“We could attempt to transport her to California with the convoy. We’d keep her in the back of one of the transports, transform it into a makeshift infirmary.” He can tell that this isn’t the doctor’s preferred option, but she will not withhold it from him. Her oath will not allow for such deceit. “At any moment she could start to bleed again, any day infection could take hold and brutalize her. I wouldn’t recommend this, the risk of a terrible death is… _very_ high.” 

 

Kylo nods and mulls over it for a moment. It’s not even a choice really. Option one wasn’t really on the table. Not when there was still hope. Disgusting, raw, tempting hope. Hope that would crush him, turn his insides out and leave him a quivering mess of exposed nerves for the zombies to feast upon. But still hope nonetheless. 

 

“Rey comes with us to California.” He states, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to her forehead, tasting the salt of her sweaty skin as he backs away. 

 

He hears mixed reactions spread through the room. The disapproving sighs of the medics, the relieved breaths of their friends, the soft sob of his mother as she lingers behind him. Watching her only son bet his life on a long shot. 

 

Kylo knows that it is more likely than not that Rey will perish on the journey. But he has to give her a chance. She could have shot him in that cabin when it seemed all hope was lost, spared him the agony of blood poisoning and ended it there. But she hadn’t, she had made love with him, sobbed over him, plead for him to _fight_. And he would do no less now that their positions have been reversed. 

 

“Rey lives.” He whispers and kisses her chapped lips, tasting her blood on his tongue. 

 

 _His heart_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter and then an epilogue, y'all. It's been a wild ride :,)
> 
> Please kudo/leave feedback. I poured my heart into this chapter, and hope that Kylo's voice was distinctive from Rey's. <3
> 
> You can check on updates/future works/send me requests for my prompt collection at my tumblr: [Here](http://oscarius.tumblr.com)


	23. Finality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey ends.

She wakes four times. 

 

The first time, she is only vaguely aware of the coldness that envelops the whole of her being. Her mind is sluggish, slow to remember what has happened to her, and the bodies gathered around her - speaking what might as well be frantic gibberish for all she can discern - confuse her. 

 

And then she remembers. Hux killed her. Or tried too. She isn’t dead yet. _Yet_. Rey is cold. _Very_ cold. Texas isn’t meant to be so frigid, even in the autumn it’s supposed to be scalding. Blood loss then, surely. Ice courses through her veins. She has been emptied of the precious blood that had warmed her so, that she had taken for granted. Funny, how Kylo’s own blood had nearly killed him, now she is near death because she’s lost too much. 

 

Then she hears it. A sharp stab through the muffling blanket that obscures her senses. His voice, low and rumbling. She can’t make out what he says, but she knows it’s him. It has to be. She wishes that she could reach for him, kiss him, touch him one last time. But she’s too weak, too far gone. She shuts her eyes and lets the deep, icy, rolling waves of unconsciousness overcome her. 

 

The second time she wakes Rey is marginally more lucid. She feels warmer, like she’s being held, cradled even. She feels someone tugging at her wound site, and feels someone’s fingers combing through her blood matted hair. They’re in a vehicle, moving, but the jostling of it doesn’t bother her; she’s in shock, she can’t feel the pain any longer. Someone’s fingers are pressed to her throat, keeping check of her pulse. It’s weak, she can hear it, sporadic and faltering in her ears. 

 

Chapped lips press to her forehead, and a large, slightly crooked nose nuzzles against her hairline. _Kylo_. Of course it’s him, he would never leave her behind. 

 

Rey finds it within herself to open her eyes, because she knows that she will die soon, can feel it slowing enveloping her, the sweet, black silk of death creeping up her body from the tips of her toes, over her knees, past the womb that may have once borne an inkling of a dream of a child shared between the two of them. 

 

His eyes are dark and beautiful, near black, mournful and tender as they meet her own. His lips part and he lets the pad of his thumb trail over her blood smeared cheek, eyes glistening with unshed tears. The ebon sheet has reached her midsection, where a stranger is still frantically pulling at her torn, ragged flesh; futilely. 

 

“ _I love you_.” Kylo chokes, voice so thick with unspoken words, unsung dreams of their future together, that Rey wishes she had the strength to cry. But she doesn’t, she is dying. The blackness has strangled her lungs, left them gangrenous and bloody, no longer able to take in air. 

 

She wants to say it back, to tell him one more time what he means to her, but she can’t, her voice lost with her lungs. So Rey, with her last vestiges of life, reaches for him; her life, her love, and lets her fingers ghost over the pale skin of his face. He’s beautiful. A beautiful monster. _Her_ beautiful monster. She loves him. Loves him more than the life that she can feel rising into her raw throat, passing through her bloodied lips. 

 

She dies.

 

The third time she wakes she is _hot_. Her body is on fire. She wants to scream, to beg for someone to put the flames out, _please, God, it hurts_ , but she can’t. She can only emit a strangled, cracking gasp as her hands fly the source of the agony. Her gut. 

 

How she is alive? Rey doesn’t know. But in this moment all she cares about is making the pain _stop_. 

 

There is movement all around her, the very ground beneath her seems to shift and rock and tremble, and then there is an acute pinch in her left arm, and the pain eases. Her mind begins to fog again. But she doesn’t sleep, can’t sleep. It has lessened, but the agony is still there, throbbing at the back of her mind. So she remains semi-conscious for an indeterminable period of time, lying on her back, whimpering for God to end it, to remove her suffering and let her die. 

 

Sometime later she hears a voice that she knows; the familiar low tenor of Kylo strikes her eardrums, and she suddenly wants to die a little less. He sounds worried, frantic. And Rey stirs against the dregs of the drug that hold her in her half lucid state, desperate to see him, to kiss him and touch him and make love with him again because _she’s alive_. He is with her and she has forgotten her pain. 

 

She manages to open her eyes, seeing the blurred outline of him draw nearer to her side, and then he kneels beside her, coming into focus as his harrowed face nears her own. He is haggard, hair greasy and face thinned like he hasn’t been eating. He’s covered in a fine layer of grime, and she can see the blurred outline of a rifle thrown over his shoulder. 

 

Rey parts her parched, cracked lips, and tries to speak, only for a high, rough hiccup to rise in her throat. Water. She needs water. 

 

She feels Kylo’s strong hands on her shoulders, behind her back, lifting her just enough so that he can press the cool rim of a stainless steel water bottle to her mouth. She drinks thirstily, the cool, life giving liquid soothing her cracked throat, dampening the arid desert that her mouth has become. But he pulls away before she’s finished, and she whimpers, raising a trembling, pale hand in protest. 

 

Kylo lays her back down, letting his finger ghost over her cheek. His full lips press to her forehead, and when he pulls away he explains, softly, melancholically, like he is recalling better times.

 

“Remember last time, sweetheart?”

 

She does.

_The corner of his mouth quirks downwards and he reaches behind himself. He pulls out a stainless steel water bottle, beat to hell, and tosses it at her._

_“Here,” he says, “Drink.”_

_It lands with a thud in front of her. She glances at it and then goes back to glaring at him. Like hell she’s going to drink anything he gives her._

_He rolls his eyes and turns away again, fiddling with something on the high set work table across the room. “Fine, think what you want. It’s your hide.”_

_She stares at the bottle for another long moment, taking note of the faded blue color and the wear along the bottom, tiny tallies worn into it by time._

_She inhales through her nose, keeping her eyes trained on the floor and bottle in front of her. She has to be sure that it's safe. “...you...first.” She manages to croak._

_He freezes at the sound of her, like he had expected her to sit there and die from dehydration. She grinds her teeth. He slowly walks over to kneel in front of her, and he looks her dead in the eye as he lifts the bottle from the ground, unscrews the lid with a distinct ‘squeak’ sound and presses it to his full lips; drinking deeply of the contents with several exaggerated gulps. His adam’s apple bobs distinctly against the pale skin of his throat as he finishes, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand._

_He grabs her hand, dwarfing it in his own, and presses the bottle into her palm._

_“See,” he says. His voice is gruff, his dark eyes remain locked onto her face, “Not spiked. Drink.” He pulls away and returns to his work bench._

_She obeys and presses the still open bottle to her lips, sipping at first and then, realizing the depth of her own thirst, she tilts it back and chugs the cool contents. It soothes her throat and washes a foul taste from her mouth that she hadn’t even realized was there. She empties the canister and lets it drop to the floor. She presses her hands onto the sleeping bag and rises slowly and shakily to her feet, then rests her palms on her knees and breaths deeply for a moment as her whole body protests the action, her knees quake and her head throbs more insistently. Her gaze catches on her injured foot, wrapped in clean bandages and no longer an angry red color._

_“How long was I out?” Her voice is mostly in tact, a bit airy but otherwise returned to normal by the water._

_“Four days.” He says, monotone and disinterested, “You were semi-lucid sometimes. That’s when I would make you drink. You’re lucky you’re not dead.” He glances over his shoulder at her like he expects gratitude._

_She puffs out her chest indignantly, and frowns at him. “Where’s my stuff?”_

_He sniffs and turns to lean his back against the table, like he’s anticipating a fight. “I hid it.”_

_What? Rey’s fists clench at her sides and rage bubbles low in her belly, “Why the fuck would you do that?”_

_His face, which before had been cautious and guarded, sours as soon as the words have left her mouth. “Because I didn’t want you to wake up confused and try to bludgeon me to death with that bat! Clearly I made the right decision.” He crosses his arms over his chest and stands up straight, looking down on her._

_She hardly has time to take in the sheer massiveness of his body before she’s standing toe to toe with him, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She can feel her nails biting into the palms of her hands._

_He visibly snarls at her, shuffling back into the metal work bench, “It means that you’re irrational and erratic, even when you’re lucid, apparently!” He throws his hands up, and she flinches away reflexively._

_“Just tell me where they are so I can go.” She demands, low and sullen. She needs to get to Atlanta, to the CDC so she can understand this whole mess. So she doesn’t have to live on the edge anymore. She’s so close, or she had been. There's no telling where this maniac has taken her._

_“So you can nail me in the head with your bat and take my supplies? Not likely.” He snaps, “And you’re hardly in shape to be leaving. You just woke up from a fucking four day fever dream, and you’re still severely dehydrated. You’d die out there on your own.”_

_“You’re such a fucking asshole!” She jumps at him, intending to swing, but is instead overcome by a wave of nauseating vertigo. She hits the floor on her knees and wretches, her entire body screaming at her to rest. “Fuck.” She hisses as she stares at the water she had just downed, all brought back up in a single act of rash stupidity_

_The man chuckles above her, “I told you.”_

 

Yes, she remembers that first day with him. It seems like eons ago, another lifetime entirely. How different she had been, then. How naive and hopeful. She had hated him then, a man with no name. She had been mistrustful of him, despised his arrogance, his power over her. 

 

Now he is everything. Her entire world begins and ends with him. 

 

 _Kylo_.

 

He’s right. She must drink slowly. Her damaged abdomen couldn’t handle the muscle strain of a vomiting fit. 

 

Rey’s eyes focus on him again, returning from the memory that had flashed so vividly behind her eyelids. He’s still holding her in his arms, watching her face intently. 

 

She has found her voice again, now that her mouth and throat have regained some moisture, and though they are weak and hoarse, there is still power behind her words, “I love you.” 

 

Kylo leans forward and kisses her lips, letting his tongue ghost teasingly over her lower lip before pulling away and laying her back down on what she now recognizes as a nylon sleeping bag. 

 

She shifts where she lays, beginning to feel the burn in her abdomen again, and she looks to him for comfort, for answers; “What’s happening to me?” Rey realizes then how contorted her voice is, slow and thick like molasses pouring from between her teeth. And suddenly she is overcome by a shiver, her body swinging from scaldingly hot to icily cold. Her fists clench at her sides and she whimpers, her abdomen still throbbing. 

 

She reaches a pathetic, trembling hand towards him, beckoning him to lay beside her, to hold her, to keep her warm. This is infection. Her wound must be infected. She remembers this with her foot and her cheek; the burning, the chills, the fever and sudden temperature fluctuations. She’s not long for this world. It’s in her abdomen this time, over more vital organs than she can name; her stomach, her intestines, spleen and pancreas. All at risk of infection, of bursting and filling her with deadly bacteria, or bubbling, razing acid. 

 

Kylo comes willingly, taking her hand and curling beside her on the sleeping bag. He is gentle as he wraps himself around her, wary of her abdomen, his arm reaches over her chest, cradling her to him. He’s so warm, and she burrows her face into his shoulder, inhaling deeply at the musk of him. His lips brush over her hair as he begins to explain. 

 

“You died,” his voice is thick, laden with unshed tears, but he restrains himself and continues shakily, “But they brought you back. We’re travelling in convoy to California now, you’re in a makeshift medical transport truck, think of it like a hospital on wheels. You have an infection at your wound site. It’s bad,” he admits, “It’s resistant to the few things we’ve managed to scavenge along the road, but we’re only two days away from the Mojave outpost. We’ve radioed them and they have antibiotics. If you can just…” He trails off, and she feels dampness against her scalp, feels him shudder against her in his silent tears. 

 

Two days is a long time to exist like this, in a world of agony, of frigid cold and blazing heat. Rey doesn’t know if she can make it. Her hand fists in the sweat dampened fabric of Kylo’s shirt. 

 

“Let me go,” the ghost of a whisper is so light that he can hardly hear it, and it takes him a long, tense second to process her words, her command, _her plea_. She isn’t asking that he remove his arms from around her shivering body. No. She’s asking for death. 

 

He shudders again, an audible sob wracking his hulking frame, made smaller by what must be a week of malnutrition. “ _Rey_.” 

 

Another memory overwhelms her, forcing her eyes to shut tight as she relives it with more vividness than she lives the reality that surrounds her now.

 

_“I want you to stay down,” Rey says as he starts to work at the fly of his pants, she tugs her knife from her waistband, “I’ll cut away the lower half of the pant leg...just stay down, please.”_

_He silently obeys, relaxing back into the nylon and closing his eyes. Rey begins by cutting a circle in the khaki material around his knee, easily pulling it down to the top of the affected area, where she stops. Then she cuts a slit from the ankle of the pants, up to the bottom of the wound, cutting away the excess until all the remains is the fabric that is matted to his skin._

_Before she begins the process of peeling it away she quietly cuts a strip of cloth from the bottom of her own torn and bloodied shirt, and she offers it to him. He balls it up and shoves it into his mouth, biting down hard in preparation for what’s to come next. She makes sure she has a firm grip on the material and then she pulls. Trying to make it quick, like removing a bandaid. Kylo howls against the fabric in his mouth and Rey cringes as the piece she is working on tears in half. Part of the bloodied, sticky material coming away while the rest remains cemented in place from days of festering._

_But it’s enough. She’s pulled away enough to see, beneath the dirt and grime, dark pink lines working their way from the open wound up his calf to his knee. She remembers what Doc had said about systemic infection and she blanches._

_Blood poisoning. Doc had been referring to blood poisoning. Her hands fall to her sides and ball into fists. They are alone in the wilderness, with no concept of where they might be, being pursued by a group of convicted criminals, with no access to medication or aid, and Kylo has blood poisoning. That explains the high fever then. Rey collapses forward onto him, burying her face into his chest. He’s going to die._

_Kylo is going to die._

_A sob wracks her body. And Kylo jokes, morosely, “That bad, huh?”_

_“Blood poisoning.” She blubbers into his shoulder, and his face whitens and falls._

_“You have to leave me here sweetheart,” he says, “I’m a goner. You have to leave me here and run before they find us.”_

_Rey sits bolt upright at his side and smacks his chest weakly, “Stop asking me to leave you!” She cries, “I won’t! I can’t do it!”_

_“Rey--”_

_“Stop!” She snaps, taking his face in her hands and leaning over him. She doesn’t want to hear him beg anymore, doesn’t want to listen to him assume that she doesn’t need him. “I understand now Kylo Ren, I understand why I could never leave you, even when you had pissed me off, and belittled me, and called me names. I’m in love with you! The same way you’re in love with me, it’s fucked up, and possessive, and wrong in so many ways...but I love you.” Her voice tapers off at the end as fresh tears begin their trek down her face, over her cheeks, falling down and peppering his own._

_His dark eyelashes flutter, and then he brings his hands up, framing her face with them, and pulling her down into a deep, longing kiss. He pulls her flush to his body as he ravishes her lips with fevered mouth and tongue as he reaches and pushes her leggings down her thighs and she fumbles with his fly. She tugs her ruined shirt over her head, breaking the kiss briefly, only to return to it with fervor, desperate to be close to him, to feel him in her heart, her bones. She ignores the sting of her fresh wounds and embraces him wholly._

_One last time, she thinks as she sobs into his mouth. One last time._

 

He hadn’t given up on her then, hadn’t let himself drown in the burning agony of his blood poisoning, he had fought. 

 

Rey wishes that they could make love now like they had then. But this isn’t a leg injury, one that can easily be avoided during intercourse. Her middle has been split in two and is now ravaged by microscopic marauders intent on eating her from the inside out. There will be no passionate lovemaking fueled by their desperation, their fear of losing one another will not manifest in passionate kisses and rolling hips. Rather they will lay here, side by side, Kylo curled protectively around her as they silently pray for absolution. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and the truck jolts abruptly, bringing on a fresh wave of blinding pain. It shoots through her spine, pulsing in her skull, behind her eyes, from the tips of her fingers all the way to her wound, and beyond. The very air around her seems to pulse with the agony of it. 

 

Kylo feels her stiffen, hears her cry out, and calls for a medic, “More morphine. She’s in pain.” His voice is thick with grief. 

 

The morphine works fast, injected directly into her arm. It clouds her vision and her thoughts, lulling her into complacency in Kylo’s arms. But she doesn’t sleep, not really. For two days she remains this way, semi-conscious, listening to the world around her, experiencing it as nothing more than a blur of sound and color and strong arms keeping her held close to a hard chest. Warm. Loved. 

 

She could let go now. Wrapped in his arms, held tight to his chest. She could die here, and move on to whatever awaits her with few regrets. No regrets but one. Kylo. The grief of losing her, the pain it would cause him… she will never intentionally subject him to such torture. So Rey clings to life, just barely. For Kylo. All for Kylo. Her love. Her anchor. Her life.

 

Occasionally a voice will break through her reverie, low, and throbbing with emotion. “ _I love you_.” He pleads, “Just a little while longer, sweetheart. Please don’t leave me. I can’t lose you.”

 

His last words to her before she had stepped into the truck and driven off to face her own demise echo in her skull.

 

_“Don’t leave me, Rey.” He whispers brokenly into her ear. And she knows what he means. She understands that when he says ‘leave’ he is using the irreversible sense of the word. Don’t die._

 

Rey doesn’t want to die anymore now than she had then. He’s here. Warm, alive, her anchor. As long as he lives she wants to live on beside him, in his arms. 

 

“I love you.” She manages past the tightness in her throat. She can promise nothing, not when, at any moment, the infection could enter her bloodstream, could enter a vital organ and shut down her body processes. It’s the same pain rehashed again; she will not lie to him. Rey will not fill him with false hope only to die in his arms. 

 

More morphine. 

 

The haze takes her again. 

 

When she falls unconscious the final time, it's on a stretcher being rushed through the sterile, pressurized tent of a field hospital at the Mojave military outpost. 

 

_California. They’ve made it._

 

When she wakes the fourth time she’s still aching, but no longer burning with white hot flame. Kylo is beside her, slumped over in a metal folding chair, asleep. The beeping of a heart monitor and the presence of a pulse oximeter on her left pointer finger clue her in to where she is. The last dregs of morphine fueled discombobulation swept away by the saline fed into her arm by an IV.

 

Rey smiles, and reaches for his hand, wincing slightly as she disturbs the healing gashes for her stomach. He stirs under her touch, coming to slowly at first with a few dazed blinks, and then all at once. He leaps out of the chair, jumping backward and staring at her, wide eyed and pale faced. And then the tears begin, trailing over his too-thin cheeks. He’s still not eating enough. 

 

She’ll have time to yell at him later. 

 

For now she wants nothing more than to embrace him as he crawls onto the bed with her, caressing her with a tenderness she has never before seen in him, never felt in his reverent touch. His lips ghost along the curve of her throat, trailing up to her lips so that they might properly kiss for the first time in days, weeks, eons as far as they’re concerned. 

 

“ _Rey_.” He gasps, pulling back just far enough to gaze into her eyes; bright, hazel, and filled with life. 

 

“ _Kylo_.” She whispers, running gentle fingers over the curve of his jaw, feeling his stubble prick her fingertips. She returns his gaze, so loving and longing and full of fragile, blossoming hope. 

 

There isn’t pain here. There isn’t fear, or hatred, or obsession. 

 

It’s just them. Kylo and Rey, together. Finally safe with an entire life ahead of them, waiting to be built, and lived, and filled with love. 

 

Kylo leans forward and kisses her again. A promise. 

 

 _We are the same_. 

 

**End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last real chapter. Next posting will be the epilogue :,)
> 
> Please, please, please, I beg of you, tell me what you think. <3
> 
> My tumblr: [darksister](https://dvrksister.tumblr.com). I changed my URL, don't worry, if you were already following me you still are.


	24. Epilouge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10 points to whoever finds the Fallout New Vegas reference first.
> 
> Content warning for Pregnancy loss.

Rey leans against the railing on her front porch, looking out over the tall grass and weeds that comprise her front yard. An unlit cigarette hangs loosely between her lips. She is reflecting, reminiscing in this rare moment of quiet. 

 

Ten years. It has been ten years since their arrival at the Mojave military outpost. After her recovery she and Kylo had decided to stay and aid the reconstruction efforts, God knows they needed it. There had a been a breach in the lines towards mid -California. The combined national guard and military had been pushed all the way into the Pacific Ocean by the growing horde. They were forced to retreat, and all safe land north of Santa Barbara and south of Seattle, Washington was lost. The North American Safe Zone was fractured in two. Millions of survivors were killed, turned, or unaccounted for. 

 

It had been a slow reclamation process. Rey was trained as a surgeon. Six years of medical school summarized into three months of training. She was only taught what the army thought she would need, what they found useful. Any major injuries to the trunk of an individual were to be treated as inoperable. Those poor sods were given a shot of sedatives, and then, once they had gone under, a massive dose of barbiturates. It has become a sordid joke between she and Kylo to compare kill counts. That is the only way to find humor anymore, in the darkest aspects of the ever raging zombie war. 

 

Those who were injured on the limbs or extremities weren't any better off. The hell they endured was of the sort that made them beg for that life ending shot of barbiturates. Limbs with shattered bones were sawed off, for the first few years anesthesia was readily available in field hospitals, but eventually the supply tapered off. Only the city hospitals were stocked with it, and only officers and high ranking officials were vital enough to be airlifted. They had resorted to alcohol more than once to dull the agony of the bone saw, and soon enough it became their sole antiseptic as well. Gangrene was now the greatest killer, not the hordes or the ever present raiders and hill tribes. 

 

Kylo had aided in the military effort. An active combatant in four of the seven wars of reclamation and preservation their burgeoning nation had been host to. The first two ‘wars’ had simply been overhyped mass exterminations. They had pushed the Californian horde north, and then west out of Los Angeles, opening to city to civilian resettlement. The second and third had been less akin to war, and more akin to border skirmishes with the organized tribes of the Rockies over resources and land. 

 

During her first pregnancy she had been moved from the field to a city hospital in Santa Barbara - by no will of her own, she still suspects that Kylo had a hand in it - once the girl was born she had decided to remain. Offering aid as an obstetrician, filling her own newfound need to cradle the little ones. Birth control was heavily restricted by the new government. They wanted to repopulate. Only women with a diagnosed medical condition were permitted to use it. Condoms were piled up and burned in bulk. Eventually, after she had become pregnant with their boy, they both resigned and traveled north. Needing to escape the authoritarian clutches of the New California Republic. 

 

They settled in northern Oregon. In a collection of small farmsteads, one of which was owned by Kylo’s uncle Luke. Here they lived, maintained by farming, kept guns close for when the stray zombie would wander near. Rey birthed their twins and Kylo hunted. They made love. Married with Luke officiating. They lived.

 

They were still living. 

 

“Hey,” Kylo steps out of the house behind her, she can hear the boys playing in the back, they must have finished their chores with their father's guidance.

 

He smirks, leaning on the railing beside her. He's still so handsome in his odd way. Even though his hair is beginning to grey at the roots, his face is storied and lined. She thinks she might love him even more than she had then, if that's even possible. The life they’ve shared as been a good one, a full one despite the hardship. And they aren't through yet. 

 

His tawny eyes slide to her lips, an eyebrow quirking at the unlit cigarette that still hangs there. “Need a light?” He quips, reaching into his pocket.

 

“No.” Rey sighs, denying the vice even though she itches for it, “I don't smoke when I'm pregnant.” 

 

He nods and stands still for a long moment, not having comprehended her admission. Then he pales, eyes going wide. “What?” He turns on heel, shock and excitement written over his features, “How--” 

 

“I'll give you three guesses.” Rey jests, turning to let her back support her on the railing, crossing her sinewy arms over her chest. 

 

“I mean…” he flushes adorably, his ears peeking out from his hair have turned beet red. “...I don't know what I meant. _I know how_.” 

 

Rey just watches him, amused by the whole ordeal. She slides towards him on the railing, one hand covering his where it grips the peeling paint and rotting wood tight. “The twins aren't going to be happy,” she muses, “They won't be the babies anymore.”

 

Kylo is staring out into the road. Most of the asphalt has come up over the years, now replaced by gravel and dust that turns to mud when it rains. He's far away, she can tell. It's something that happens to them both on occasion. It's worse at night, when more often than not one of them will wake panting and gasping for breath, the other's name caught on the lips they’ve chewed raw. 

 

He’s remembering their girl. 

 

Rey smiles sadly and wraps and arm around his middle, settling into his side. They hadn’t named her, just buried her tiny body beneath a wooden cross. The words “Baby Girl” carved into the surface of it. Not enough resources were given to the obstetricians in the hospitals, not even in the early days of their young nation. They were simply meant to keep the mothers alive and deliver babies. No one could’ve known that their daughter’s heart wasn’t big enough. That she had grown wrong. That she would be born dead. Rey had been young and unaware. Hadn’t known what it meant when a baby didn’t kick and stir in their mother’s womb. And despite her fear during the early days of her pregnancy, the stillbirth had rendered her in two. Kylo was the only thing that kept her alive for months afterwards. 

 

Though that had been nine years before, Rey still dreams of it. Only slightly different. She dreams that they’re still at that house in Mississippi, only it isn’t some unknown infant they bury, it’s their daughter. Rey often wonders how much their traumas affect their daily lives. Is their comforter maroon because they like the color? Did they name their first son Kestrel because they liked the ring of it? Did they name one of their twins Matthew because it was the name of some distant relative? Do they keep a baseball bat on the mantel for decoration? Or were they giving silent vigil to the demons of their past? 

 

“I want a girl.” Kylo whispers, pulling her to his chest and kissing her hair. “I hope it’s a girl.” 

 

Rey smiles into his shirt. Even after all of these years he still smells the same. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. This is the first multi-chapter fic I've ever completed and I... I just don't know what to say. Thank you to everyone who supported me when I hit a rut in mid-July. Thank you to all the people who have been with this since the beginning, or started part-way through, or are reading this years after I post the epilogue. I never thought my writing would gain any attention, but it has, and you're all amazing for it. 
> 
> Please, even if you never have before, leave a comment for me. Let me know what you think of this work as a whole. I love your feedback and would like to thank each reader individually. 
> 
> You might notice that this is now part of a series, I intend to write a few more oneshots fleshing out the post-apocalypse world a bit more. They will post at random, no schedule. But keep an eye out for them! There is already one posted, Bullet in the Chamber, an alternate ending to chapter 13. 
> 
> Keep an eye out for what's coming next. I have a work coming at the end of October for the Reylo Short Story collection, and I intend to start posting the next AU I'm working on in early November. 
> 
> I take prompts and questions on my Tumblr: [dvrkrey](https://dvrkrey.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Thank you all again, so much. Hopefully I'll see ya'll around. <3
> 
> -Annie


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